


everyday msr

by melforbes



Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 07:59:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 73
Words: 75,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16677694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melforbes/pseuds/melforbes
Summary: everyday depictions of the lives of mulder and scully, backup of my everydaymsr blog (now melforbes) on tumblr





	1. at starbucks

**Author's Note:**

> two years ago, i started the everydaymsr blog on tumblr, the url now being melforbes. with unsubstantiated rumors of tumblr being shut down, i figured i would back these up someplace. 
> 
> when i first started writing xf fic, i was in a really bad place with health. at the time that i created my pen name, i was actually on my couch during a particularly painful week, unable to stand, feeling acute paranoia and high anxiety while one of my legs was swollen and my nausea was so bad that i could barely eat the 500 calories that meant i could take my medication. i was 19, going into my sophomore year of college, scared, and rendered helpless. i'd wanted to start writing somewhere on the internet, had been writing xf fic for my eyes only for a few months by then, and after reading an article about being of service to others and knowing that there were particularly few ways for me to be of service to others given my current state, i decided to start a very casual tumblr page in which i would write essentially fleshed-out domestic headcanons, probably no more than a thousand words each, or more like no more than five hundred. they would be written in lowercase text, would be titled in a very sparse way, and in most cases would only take one sitting to write. in the end, all i really hoped that would come from it was that i could make myself and others feel better through little bits of sweetness. i am chaptering them here with the oldest post first so that anyone who cares to read can start at the real beginning, though this doesn't follow an overarching plot.
> 
> most of these aren't good. it was an achievement that someone even commended me for when these started having plot. there are a lot of errors within them, and because of the quick, casual nature of them, the editing was virtually nonexistent. that being said, i take a lot of pride in this collection not for its content but for the fact that it exists. at the time of writing these, i had brain problems resulting from neuroborreliosis, so what i now see these as, other than as a way to make myself and others feel good, is as a chronicle of my healing, both that of my brain and that of myself. some of these are strangely personal in retrospect, one of which being about scully buying mulder a christmas present when i was particularly depressed that i had no one to give a christmas present to or another having been written while on a train back from seeing gillian in streetcar in new york and trying to calm a panic attack. when i'm forced to reread these, i wince, but i'm horribly proud of this collection, of how it made me feel less alone in hard times and of how i remained dedicated to it even at my sickest and of how i did receive comments saying that these made someone's day a little bit easier. 
> 
> and, again, all of that being said, most of these suck. if you want anything remotely good, you're going to need to head toward the latter chapters. this does not follow any overarching plot though many elements persist throughout the whole thing, and the timeline, more often implied than not, tends to be post-series iwtb/revival1 era.
> 
> it still remains to be my hope that these will make you feel just a little bit better.

“vanilla latte for dana?”

her drink always comes up first, and as she picks up the cup, she immediately takes off its lid, sighs at the sight of whipped cream on top. though she always makes it clear that she doesn’t want whipped cream, she’s rarely gotten a coffee without the dollop on top.

“whipped cream?” mulder asks as he stands with his hands in his pockets, waiting on his drink while she goes over to grab a stirrer.

“yes,” she says begrudgingly as she scoops the cream off with the stirrer, leaves it in the garbage.

“you could always ask them to remake it,” mulder says, shrugging.

“there are worse things than extra whipped cream.”

at that, he smiles while reaching out, drawing her into his side; he kisses the top of her head - she’s wearing flat shoes - and ignores the uncomfortable look she always gives when they’re affectionate in public.

“mocha frappucino, extra whip, for matt?”

at that, mulder picks up his drink, doesn’t miss the slight smile on scully’s face as she finally gives in to that little kiss.

“you know,” scully says as they walk out toward her car, her eyes at a perfect height to agonize over his mocha drizzle, “diabetes and obesity are an endemic in the united states.”

“yeah, yeah, yeah,” he brushes off. “want a sip?”

she does. she always does.


	2. at the ballet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written on a train returning home from seeing streetcar in new york, having a panic attack, listening to the same song over and over again and hoping to calm myself down

they’re half an hour early per scully’s itinerary; with his ticket in hand, mulder lets her guide him through the little crowd outside of the box office, some picking up tickets and others hoping to get one for their latest whim. he’s not one for fine arts, particularly the modern or performance-based ones, but a month beforehand, she mentioned that she would love to take in a ballet, so here they are, him wearing a sport-coat and a tie she’d given him years beforehand, her wearing a little black dress and nude pumps. at first, he jokingly moped about going to the ballet, but now, he’s smiling as an emcee cuts their tickets, as they head into the theatre.

“scully?” he asks as they find their velvet seats within the historic-looking theatre, the moulding on the walls moving in exquisite and intricate patterns; above them, there are golden paintings on the high ceiling.

she hums a response, looks to him as she crosses her legs.

“were you ever a ballerina?”

at that, she smiles begrudgingly, as though she hoped he wouldn’t ask that question but knows that her answer will make him ecstatic.

“for all of three years, yes,” she admits, biting her lip. “melissa and i took class together. though she could figure out the steps, i….”

she twists her wrist a few times as a completion to the sentence while he grins on alongside her.

“are there pictures?”

she sighs.

“unfortunately.”

his shit-eating grin only gets bigger, so she shakes her head, takes his hand softly in hers. when he squeezes her palm, she squeezes back.

“thank you for doing this,” she says, her tone more serious but equally loving. “ever since we went to that modern art museum, i’ve been pretty sure i’d never get you to go to something like this again.”

shrugging, he tries to find words to convey how he has followed her to the literal ends of the earth, so therefore, going to a ballet with her is child’s play, but instead, he says, “anytime, scully.”

they have a long time before the curtain call, but nonetheless, he feels settled in. and who knows? maybe, after he and scully have shared a post-performance ice cream cone and headed out to the car, she’ll let him kiss her silly regardless of who may be watching. maybe. just maybe.


	3. at whole foods

“all i’m saying, scully, is that i can imagine the funding put into this product, you know? think about it. how many people were around just to taste-test this stuff? what was the scientist’s philosophy on this creation? create something as close to bacon as possible without using any bacon? it’s like an episode of  _chopped_ , or  _survivor_.”

“mulder, it’s just vegan bacon,” she says as she grabs a carton of cashew milk - unsweetened vanilla, he’s memorized, though she normally prefers almond but has chosen to switch over in light of california’s water problems - and puts it in their cart. “it’s not a big deal.”

“but scientists could’ve had their livelihood hinging on it, scully!” he says as she sighs but smiles, for she can’t take him into this store without having him notice something and go on and on about it until they’ve checked out. last time, he scrutinized over the bulk food section and how so many different varieties of the same-colored rice they had. “your pay could’ve been dependent on whether or not fake bacon tasted like real bacon. can you imagine, going home to your spouse and children, telling them that you’ve been fired and can no longer support them because your  _facon_  tasted too fake?”

checking her list, she sees that they need fresh basil, so she turns them back toward the produce section, listens as he continues to concoct a story about a food-scientist whose downfall was to fake bacon. softly, she smiles; he’s always experienced life in a different way from her, as though their personal microscopes were on separate but equally-focused lenses. it’s best at restaurants, when he turns tales about how couples at other tables are living; sometimes, she even joins in on those, adds a personality point or two.

“do we have any pine nuts for pesto?” she asks as she picks up some fragrant basil.

“i don’t think so,” he says. “want me to go grab some?”

“sure,” she hesitates, surprised that he’s leaving her side. they’re notorious for shopping together even if that means their errands take longer.

when he returns with pine nuts and a single sample cookie from the bakery for her, she has him figured out.


	4. at chipotle

“i’ll have a salad for here, please.”

he hovers behind her, both a step too far away and a step too close. as she’s complained before, these franchises are so loud, but they’re the healthiest fast-food she’s managed to find.

it’s the same order each time - chicken, medium salsa, black and pinto beans, extra cilantro on top if only to see how mulder’s face scrunches up in silent disgust, dressing on the side - but she doesn’t mind being repetitive. on the other hand, mulder always gets a burrito with variety, this time with carnitas - she still doesn’t know what those are, but there’s a pretty good chance he doesn’t either - and hot salsa, cheese and lettuce and sour cream, corn relish for good measure. as his burrito is being folded, the tortilla tears, so he ends up with two around the biggest burrito she’s ever seen. and then he orders chips and guacamole. 

“go big or go home,” he whispers as she slides her credit card. while she pays, he carries everything over to a table, grabs a fork and fills a glass of water for her.

though it’s rare for them to go out for a meal, it had been a hundred degrees in their home for days now, so the thought of cooking - or of leaving her nice spot in bed, angled in front of a fan while he curls up behind her - was abhorrent. this loud establishment has air-conditioning, so their decision was quick and easy. 

his burrito is predictably messy, so he has napkins lined up, unashamed as she holds in giggles about the bit of sour cream on his cheek. reaching out, she wipes the little white mark off, bringing the ghost of a smile to his lips. quietly, and over a salad, she remembers just how much she loves him.

she’s finished long before he is, so she takes a chip, heaps the guac on top, stares out the long glass windows toward the hot pavement outside. though she occasionally feels isolated in their little house so far away, there’s something charming and quotidian about the fields around them, about the nearby lake where she can swim now that running has started to bother her joints, about its softness in comparison to that hard, hot pavement. their nearest neighbors are a nice kind of far away, just close enough in their long-distance, and there’s a farm close enough by that they always have fresh eggs. through the separation, she can draw simple lines between her work-life and her home-life, the work one filled with linoleum floors and parking garages while the home one is filled with tall grass and cool pillows. she would’ve never thought that living with mulder in a little remote house would turn that house into her haven, but it has, and she loves it. she loves their strange mixture of books on the shelves, how their music collection ranges from vinyl to cassette to cd to digital, the way that their furniture is a careful balance between handmade and target-purchased. she loves that they have a big closet to share, so sometimes, her clothes smell like him.

and she’s nearly exhausted all of the guac, so as he reaches for a chip, scrapes out the last bits of avocado and spice, she says, “sorry.”

he just smiles at her, and she knows there’s no apology necessary. 


	5. feeding the dog

“all i’m saying is that we’ve seen  _forbidden planet_  many, many times, but it’s been a long time since we watched something…”

she trails off as she takes the bag of dog food out of the pantry, takes the chip-clip from off of its rolled-over top. inside, there’s a scoop, and next to her on the counter is daggoo’s little bowl, one mulder bought and painted himself. light blue ceramic, white polka-dots, daggoo written in black print. it matches nothing else in the house.

“something what?” he asks as she pulls one full scoop out, lets it all clink into the bowl.

“something…that isn’t science fiction,” she admits as she replaces the scoop, folds up the bag, puts it back into its spot in the pantry. the dog’s vitamins are above the sink next to her, but her contacts are out, and she’ll need her glasses if she wants to read the dosage properly. at her feet, daggoo is wagging his tail impatiently; mulder is doing something similar beside her.

“well, we could watch something else,” he says as he follows her toward the bedroom, where she assumes her glasses are. daggoo trails them both, huffing at the fact that his bowl is too high up for him to reach. “maybe we could watch star wars again.”

“still science fiction, mulder,” she frets, walking up the stairs.

“we don’t know that for sure,” he insists, half-joking. “our documented history of galaxies far, far away is minimal, as you know.”

the bedroom is dark; she turns on a light, thinks  _aha_  as she sees her glasses on her bedside table. as she puts them on, she frets once more; her prescription is getting weak, and if there’s anything she truly hates, it’s being a doctor who has to go to the doctor. 

“yours too?” he asks behind his own glasses as she squints. “we can schedule a back-to-back with the local guy and carpool on one of your days off.”

“i don’t want to drive if my eyes are dilated,” she gives.

“oh,” he remembers. “right.”

then, a thought comes to mind, so she sucks her lips in, takes his glasses off of his face and then takes hers off as well. swapping their pairs, she puts on the ones he was wearing, and he takes the ones she found on her bedside table. suddenly, the world is clear again; they accidentally mixed up their glasses. again, she might add.

heading back downstairs, she goes to the sink, takes the dog-vitamins from their place, sees that daggoo needs two mixed in with his food. she takes two out, puts them on top of his chow, and sets the bowl down on the floor. happily, daggoo starts eating his dinner while she and mulder head to the living room.

“how about we watch  _notting hill_?” she asks as she sits down on the couch.

he throws his head back, his glasses moving up on the bridge of his nose. that’s a no.

“ _cruel intentions_?” she supplies.

“ _the sixth sense_ ,” he throws back.

“ _basic instinct_ ,” she gives confidently. that tape has to be around there somewhere.

“okay, we’ve reached an agreement.” he nods for confirmation, then goes to their shelves and pulls the tape out. “but i need one thing to be perfectly clear.”

“what’s that?” she asks, taking a blanket down from behind the couch while he puts the tape in, fast-forwards through the coming attractions, starts the movie. 

he sits down next to her, his side flush to hers, his arm wrapping around her back while she pushes the blanket over his lap. kissing the side of her face, he whispers, “you’re even prettier than sharon stone.”


	6. in the heat

“it’s bloody hot,” he said that morning as he walked downstairs from their bedroom, went to kiss her good-morning in the kitchen. unfortunately, her hot cup of morning tea had begun to sound unpleasant.

as he kissed her sweaty cheek, she asked, “do you think it’ll cool down by tomorrow?”

standing up straight and squinting his eyes dramatically, he gave, “i’m not sure. hopefully, it’ll cool down this evening.”

she balanced against the kitchen counter, unexcited about breakfast, unexcited about the world in general; she hated feeling too warm, wished the world could stay a contented autumn temperature all year. after all, her best suits were autumnal, and she absolutely despised shorts.

“so what do we do?” she asked, an empty mug alongside her. normally, they would go for long morning walks on their property during her days off, would do whatever they pleased together. however, too much heat threw a wrench in that, and they didn’t have central air conditioning, just a tiny unit they kept in the bedroom. 

he shrugged. “there’s always the lake.”

at the lake close to their home, she’s sitting on a towel on the beach, watching as mulder races into the water, daggoo at his heels. though the dog can swim - she hadn’t known that yet - he stays closer to the shore than mulder does. quickly, mulder goes under, wets his hair and his chest and comes up with a satisfied  _ah_. treading water, he looks back to the shore, gives her a big grin.

“are you coming in or not?” he shouts over to her.

“i have five more minutes until my sunscreen sets,” she calls back. though her freckles are as prevalent as ever, she has yet to burn this summer, and she wants it to stay that way. 

leaning back on her palms, she pushes her sunglasses up on her nose, watches him head back to shore; daggoo follows close behind, shaking off on the sand and trotting right on back to her. 

“which watch are you wearing?” he asks, water dripping off of his swim-trunks and making patterns in the sand.

looking down, she says, “the waterproof one. why?”

“isn’t that one just a little too fast?”

“i don’t remember.”

“hm,” he huffs, crossing his arms over his chest. he taps his foot in impatience, and giving him a look, she already knows what he’s going to do.

she pretends to stare at her watch, as though she were actually counting the minutes before he came out of the water; taking up a spot by her hips, daggoo sits on her towel, anticipating everything in a mirror-image of mulder himself. finally, she looks away from her watch, sucks her lips in as she says, “time’s up.”

then, his smile grows wider as he reaches down, takes off her sunglasses and leaves them on the towel; in swift motions, he picks her up, then throws her over his shoulder, walks straight for the water. as he starts to wade in, she can’t stop laughing.

“are you going to do this every single time we come here?” she asks as she starts to feel water around her toes. 

“i don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lies as he goes just beyond waist-deep and eases her down, forces her into the water. she can touch but just barely, so she brings her head under, comes up in seconds.

fretting, she exasperatedly says, “it’s cold!”

he laughs. “good observation, doc.”

but, oh, it’s such a relief to finally cool down, so she starts swimming out a little farther, mulder right behind her. from the shore, daggoo barks at them twice, makes her laugh once more. though she hadn’t gone there in a while, she loves the lake near where they live, loves the serenity and calm it offers. looking back at him, she starts to tread water, waits while he catches up.

“your hair’s gotten so long,” he says, swimming alongside her.

“good observation,” she throws back with a smirk, though he’s correct; her hair is well past her shoulders, and though cutting it would be practical, she loves the way he plays with the long strands of it at night too much to let it go.

“i can still touch out here,” he says despite how he’s treading water. 

“really?” she asks.

he nods twice, so she reaches out for him, pulls herself up against him, lets his arm brace around the small of her back. though he has to crane his neck down to do so, he kisses her, their bodies flush against each other, the taste of sunscreen around her lips; he balances them there, the cool water surrounding them, no other people out there for miles. as she reaches up to his face, brushes her thumb along his cheek, his mind is filled with only one thought.

_i love summer._


	7. in sickness

he’s never liked hospitals, but he starts to fear them, a full-bodied kind of fear that he can feel even in his toes and his jaw, when someone he loves is in one. for reasons he prefers not to think about, he hasn’t needed to visit family or friends in the hospital for some time, hasn’t been forced to take someone into one in years, but now, he’s in one, feels that full-bodied fear again.

yesterday, scully came home with a cough, said that she must’ve picked something up from a kid in the emergency room; after calling in to say that she wouldn’t be working the next day - she tended to play it safe when it came to sickness - she retired for the evening, her dinner being warm soup mulder made and served to her in bed; she was too thankful for the gesture than to complain that the vegetables weren’t fully cooked. then, she mixed some honey and herbs - it was just a little cough, she swore, and all she needed was something to suppress it so that she could sleep - and went to bed with him alongside her.

for hours, he knew she couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stop coughing long enough to let herself fall asleep. at one in the morning, he propped her up with some extra pillows, let her curl up next to him as she cringed against each cough. he rubbed her sore back, could tell that her chest hurt already, was glad she called in sick.

at three am, she had a coughing fit, one that woke him from his half-slumber; in muffled, sleepy tones, he asked if she needed anything, but she couldn’t even shake her head yes or no, so helplessly, he watched as she tried to breathe again. then, she hauled herself out of bed, looked fragmented as she went into the bathroom and vomited with force. after that, it was clear that she needed a hospital.

whooping cough, their nurse diagnosed as soon as he brought scully in so early in the morning; her doctor confirmed the diagnosis with ease, said that she hadn’t update her vaccination for it and that cases had been spreading locally. luckily, mulder had updated his recently, so he wasn’t at risk.

“mulder?” she says softly from across the room.

in the too-white hospital bed, her body is dwarfed, thinner and smaller than it normally seems; her red hair is too bright, and she looks fragile, like a child. somehow, however, she hardly looks vulnerable; she looks okay, unafraid. he sits a few feet away in an uncomfortable chair, where he tried to fall asleep while she nodded off earlier. he’s alert to her as she speaks, drawn to her immediately; he pulls his chair closer.

“yeah?” he asks.

“can you get me a glass of water?” she asks, her throat ragged.

“of course,” he nods, standing up and heading into the emergency room’s hallway.

though scully claims she’s fine to go home, her doctor wants to keep her there for a few hours, wants to make sure she doesn’t vomit again, or worse. as he steps into the hallway, he finds a nurse, asks for some water; the best he can get is some ice-chips, so he brings those back to scully, tugs his chair up to her bed.

“i could only get you ice,” he frets as he sits down, passes her the cup.

“thank you,” she says as she takes the bed-remote, props herself up, grabs the cup.

she takes a few chips into her mouth, crunches down on them; he keeps time using the drip of her iv, one that had been supplied with cough suppressants she’s thankful to have. though he forgot his watch, he figures it’s around six, maybe seven in the morning. as she takes another sip from the cup, he hopes her doctor will come back, will clear her and send her off with prescriptions and will let her out of this grueling white place. he really hates hospitals.

“you better remind me to update my shots next time,” she jokes, though it takes him a moment to realize that it’s a quip and not something he needs to do.

“a doctor who forgets her jabs,” he frets, shaking his head.

softly, she smiles, but she can’t laugh right now, not with her sore muscles.

“thank you for taking me,” she says, serious this time. “I know you don’t like hospitals.”

“hey, in sickness and in health, right?”

she presses her cheek against her pillow, keeps her same smile. reaching out, she asks silently for his hand, lets him wrap his fingers around hers. as she deeply exhales, he brings their joined hands to his lips, kisses each one of her knuckles.

she’s going to be fine.


	8. in the car

“are we there yet?”

she widens her eyes in annoyance, for even during the numerous years in which they spent hour beyond hour behind the wheel of a cheap rental car, their destination usually unbeknownst to her because if he’d bothered to clue her in, she would’ve stayed home instead, he never started the  _are we there yet_  game, and she’s not about to let him start now.

“let’s play  _i spy_ ,” he says seriously, looking to her as she drives. “i spy something white. no, that’s not a good one. there’s too much snow. you’d never find it.”

“mulder, if you’re starting this now, then we’re not going to last the next five hours,” she insists.

they’re going to boston for some holiday season festivities, seeing the pops perform and walking around the city for the weekend. for some reason, they both thought this would be a good idea and that driving would be the best way to get there, but-

“i spy something-”

interrupting him, she turns on the radio, turns the volume up while he mock-pouts in his seat. in moments, she realizes exactly which song is playing.

_joy to the world, all the boys and girls…_

as she leans forward, unable to stop laughing, he exclaims, “scully!”

_…joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea…_

the highway is just packed enough that she feels as though everyone is in her blind-spot, and there’s a solar glare bothering her, and as he reaches out for her, she brings her hand into his, rests their hands on the console. 

_…joy to you and me._


	9. coming home

it’s been raining all day, and though mulder was perfectly comfortable staying in, he felt for scully all day, knew she would look out the hospital’s windows, see dreary weather, and huff out a sad breath, wishing the day would either brighten up or end already. they both had had their fair share of rainy days; at this point in their lives, they insist on sunshine, fret at anything too dark. 

when she arrives home, her raincoat’s hood up to shield her from the unyielding downpour, he’s standing in the kitchen, a little cooking stain on his shirt; he stirs a large pot of soup, what he figures she’ll want after a long, cold day. as she steps out of her shoes - little duck-boots, too short to be worn in snow but the perfect height to wear when she needed to wear dress-slacks in the rain - and sheds her coat, he asks, “how was work?”

“too long,” she frets on a sigh. 

he put a record on earlier, ‘saturday in the park’ currently playing. as she pads into the kitchen, she asks, “what’s for dinner?”

“chicken noodle,” he says while she stands next to him, wraps her arm around his back, and breathes in deeply. “you cold?”

“yes,” she says as she lets out a deep breath. “the hospital air conditioning is still on. i’ve been freezing all day.”

whenever scully is cold, she hardly lets on to how uncomfortable she is, but she feels chills deep in her bones, the cold seeming to cling to her even when she goes to a warmer place, so he pulls his spoon out of the pot, sets it down alongside the stove, puts the lid back on the pot; coaxing her into his arms, he feels dampness on certain parts of her shirt, senses the too-fast and tireless beating of her heart. as she presses her cheek against his chest, he runs his fingers through her hair, leans down to kiss her scalp. 

“dinner or bed?” he asks. they don’t need long-winded words for nights like these anymore; he knows how to warm her up and remembers to ask rather than to choose one himself.

“dinner,” she says, nodding against his chest. “then bed.  _early_.”

he smiles, kisses her scalp once more. “okay.”

as the chicago record plays, she drifts from his arms to the pantry, takes out the brioche loaf they bought at the farmer’s market, sets it on the kitchen table; while she takes the butter - hand-churned by their farming neighbors, if a family that lives more than twenty miles from them could be considered neighbors - out of the fridge and leaves it on the table, she asks, “how was your day?”

“good,” he says, taking out silverware and starting to set the table. “actually, i finished that book you liked.”

“really?” she tries to conceal that she’s excited about that, but he can hear the  _scully smile_  in her voice. “what did you think of the ending?”

“i saw it coming but liked it anyway.”

“it’s happy but also melancholy. i don’t know how people can write like that.”

“does she have any other books out?”

“i’m not sure,” she says as she hovers by the kitchen counter, two bowls in hand. “i’ll have to check next time i go to the library.”

“speaking of the library,” he cringes, taking one of the bowls so that she can take the lid off of the soup-pot and start spooning soup into her bowl, “i think we have a fee over there.”

“from what?” she asks as she sits down at the table while he serves himself.

“remember when we borrowed the princess bride?”

“what about it?”

“apparently, that was from the kids’ section, so those only go out for three-day increments, not five.”

“that’s nuts!” she laughs as he sits down alongside her. “the princess bride is a classic, not a kids’ movie.”

“feel free to convince those scary librarians of that,” he gives. “i’ll stand back and watch.”

laughing still, she goes to take a spoonful of soup but finds that she’s warmed up already.


	10. on sunday morning

when she wakes, he’s sitting up in bed, his book in hand, daggoo at his feet.

“good morning,” he says softly as soon as she stirs; while she looks up at him, he looks down, smiles a quiet, warm smile just for her.

though she has woken up this way for many mornings now, has grown accustomed to sleeping next to him, there nonetheless remains an exquisite sense of peace within her whenever she wakes up next to him. she leans her forehead against his thigh, kisses him there even though he probably can’t feel it. when they are in bed together, she feels safe and loved; the least she can do is return that favor.

luckily, he can sense that she’s in a certain sleepy mood, so he puts the book down, gets back underneath the sheets; as she scoots closer to him, he wraps an arm around her back, snuggles her up against him while he lies on his back. kissing her forehead, he breathes her in, the scents of laundry detergent and all-natural apricot-scented deodorant and soap on her skin, along with something he can’t label, something intrinsically scully.

“how does a long walk through the field sound this morning?” he whispers to her.

against his chest, she groans, so he laughs; that’s got to be a no.

“ten more minutes in bed?” he asks.

she hums a response, halfway between yes and maybe. for now, that’s good enough. as she wraps her arm around his stomach, kisses the side of his chest aimlessly, closes her eyes on a sigh, he thinks yeah, that’s definitely good enough. running his fingers through her messy red hair, he closes his eyes as well.

then, his eyes suddenly open; he has an idea.

“hey, scully,” he says as he reaches out toward his bedside-table, picks up his phone.

“what?” she asks, opening her eyes and squinting at the brightness in their bedroom.

then, she sees his phone in hand, the stupid camera app open, groans against him once more.

“mulder, no!” she says, but she’s laughing at the while, shielding her face against his bicep.

though at first he takes accidental pictures of the ceiling, he manages to switch the cameras, take a couple selfies instead. these are his favorite kind of pictures, the ones in which he doesn’t try to focus the image and instead just takes picture upon picture so that he can capture exactly how they both feel right then. plus, her eyes squint just a little whenever she wholeheartedly laughs, and he loves the little lines that appear on her face when she’s happy.

yes, it is a good morning indeed.


	11. on a bad day

though this day comes around once each year, she’s never adequately prepared for it despite her insistence otherwise. of course, that’s why she’s holed up in her office over lunch, a salad from the hospital’s cafeteria in front of her even though the thought of eating repulses her. as she takes a deep breath, she tries to will away her overwhelming thoughts, for she has a duty to her patients; she can’t give up on them simply because she feels too emotional to work. 

but what paralyzes her, what makes her hands shake while she stares down her lunch, is that if she were to call her mother’s number, one she memorized backwards and forwards, no one would pick up. 

at that thought, she feels tears form in her eyes, and though she tries to fight them off, a stubborn one leaks onto her cheek, and that’s all it takes for her to completely lose control, to cower and close her eyes with force, to completely give in to the thoughts she’s pushed away all day, maybe even since last year. as her desk-phone starts to ring, she breathes in sharply, tries to compose herself even though such a thing seems impossible; she takes the call anyway. 

“doctor scully,” she manages on a shaky exhale. 

“hey,” mulder says on the other line. “i think your cell might be out of power because i tried calling it, but nothing went through. anyway, the neighbors brought over some fresh steaks, so i was wondering if you want to have those for dinner, and if so, what kind of marinade i should use." 

though she feels smothered by her emotions, she forces air into her lungs, hot tears on her cheeks; loose tendrils of her hair stick warmly to her face, the sensation a sensory discomfort that makes her heart race. she can’t speak, not now, but if she hangs up, he’ll be wrongfully concerned. she just needs to say one thing, so she mulls over the words, thinks about how she should say yes to the steaks and give him creative license in regard to the marinade. and then she can hang up, and he won’t suspect anything. just a few sentences is all she needs. taking a deep breath, she wills the words out, but she’s paralyzed, unable to speak.

"scully?” he asks, his voice softer than before, more aware. though he knows what day it is, he also knows that she’s best off when he doesn’t talk about it, when he lets her work and get through the day in whichever way she chooses. however, he cares deeply, sometimes to a fault, so now, he seems to see that there’s cause for concern. “are you alright?" 

then, she fully gives in to the sobs, hunches over on her desk, pushes that stupid salad out of the way. he can hear her - she knows that much for sure - but he stays silent nonetheless, waits for her to speak first. in between sobs, she wipes away tears, manages, "i miss my sister." 

twenty-one years later, this day still hurts. though her sister has been dead for twenty-one years, scully still goes into this day with a heavy heart. she can’t even imagine what melissa would look like now, older and frayed but still spirited and convincing her to give homeopathy a try. despite all of the years, she can still remember her sister’s voice, her sister’s laugh, the color of her sister’s eyes; though she has pictures and scrapbooks filled with reminders, she can remember her sister just fine without them. 

now, she’s the only  _scully woman_  left, and the  _scully men_  are growing sparse as well; bill’s retiring soon, and charlie is…she pushes him from her mind, doesn’t want to think of him right now. instead, she thinks of all of them when they were younger, when adult problems and independence hadn’t bridged so many gaps between them all. she can remember going to church on christmas with her family when she was younger, her pretty holiday dress covered by a hand-me-down winter coat, and she can remember the way that she would always get grass-stains on her white tights around easter, the easter-egg hunt at their naval base a challenge she never backed down from, and she can remember how melissa had helped her get those stains out each and every year so that their mother wouldn’t scold her. 

“i’m sorry, scully,” mulder manages on the other line. she can sense how much he hates that he isn’t physically beside her; in his opinion, his words are second to his actions. “i’m so sorry.”

she nods in acknowledgement against the phone, then cries. she just cries, for there is nothing more she can do about this. after twenty-one years, she still misses her sister, is still angry that her sister is gone, and all there is to do now is cry.

“is there anything you need?” mulder asks, as always. he’s good about that, letting her keep control in a way that makes her most comfortable, but he always remembers her answers to that question.

rationally, she knows that what she needs most is to make it through the workday, to power through and distract herself, but before she can think rationally, she blurts, “i need to go home.”

stunned, he pauses, then asks, “home?”

“to you.”

he takes a deep, surprised breath. “okay.”

“i’m going to head out. i’ll be home soon,” she says, making a mental checklist of what she needs to do before she can leave the hospital. “i love you.”

“i love you too,” mulder says, still surprised as she hangs up.

 _home_ , she thinks. yes, home. home is where she needs to be.


	12. at the aquarium

“you know, astronauts train underwater in order to best simulate being in space while they’re still on earth.”

“yes, mulder, i know that.”

on a summery saturday morning, the national aquarium is alarmingly quiet, only a few small children and their parents awake at the hour; the only sounds around them are the hum of electricity powering the tanks and the flow of water around all of the animals. though they rarely go there, this is one of their favorite spots for a day out, and they have souvenir pictures from there framed throughout their home as proof, including one of scully cupping a little sea-star in her hands and one of mulder grimacing as he holds a snake. she finds the place relaxing, from the dim corridors to the soft, soundless animals. 

he always holds her hand while they walk among the exhibits, and this time, he makes sure to hold her left in his right, for he loves the way her ring feels against his palm.

though his favorite exhibit is  _shark alley_ , if only for the name, she slows down around the atlantic coral reef, sticking close to the walls of the tank, thirteen feet deep and filled with 335,000 gallons of water. the long tank walls dwarf her little frame, and as she looks up, he follows her gaze, watches a bonnethead shark swim by ever-so-slowly. he’s always liked sharks despite their bad reputation. after all, most sharks were completely harmless to humans even though humans threaten sharks to such a high degree. one movie franchise, and suddenly, a species is considered dangerous despite so much evidence otherwise. he feels for the sharks in that way, figures that if people were to get to know sharks a little bit better, then so many sharks would live happier and more-fulfilled lives. out of spite, he’ll never watch  _jaws_.

“are you thinking about sharks again?” she asks quietly, fixated on the neon-looking blue and yellow hues within the reef.

“maybe,” he replies.

smirking to herself, she squeezes his hand, leads them both toward the next exhibit. 

“you know,” mulder tries, feeling optimistic, “some people have their weddings here. or, at least, they take wedding pictures here.”

“really?” scully asks, but her tone is dry, unsurprised, and objective. she gives him a side-eyed look even though her smirk is still there.

“really,” he confirms. “white gowns look lovely in this kind of light. plus, what little girl  _doesn’t_  imagine inviting dolphins to her wedding?”

though she wants to retort, she can’t think of a good enough comeback, so she shakes her head, keeps walking. 

“it would be awfully pretty,” he continues. “you, me, a couple of manta-rays…quite an ideal crowd, come to think of it. no one would mind if we forego the open bar. however, we’d have to plan the reception dinner carefully, no seafood on the-”

quickly, she turns around to pull him closer, stands on tiptoe in her little flat shoes, and kisses him, her hand on his cheek for balance; he wraps his arm around the small of her back, closes his eyes softly. for a moment, they’re alone in the room, just them and the 500 or more fish in the massive tank behind them, the warm colors of the coral illuminating their silhouettes. then, she pulls back, her heels on the ground again, and takes his right hand back into her left. as though nothing has happened, she pulls him forward, onward, toward the next exhibit. 

“i guess a quiet wedding here could be nice,” she gives offhandedly.

with a devilish grin, he follows her wherever she may lead.


	13. on his birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is one of my favorite things that i've ever written

when he wakes, she’s in her rarest form, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed before eight in the morning has even struck. though they’ve become morning people over the years, she typically communicates in grunts until she’s had her morning cup of english-breakfast, but now, she stares straight up at him from the base of his pillow, wears a nightgown of all things. then again, the weather is warm, has been warm for days now, and they both know how much she hates shorts. 

he bought her that nightgown, he remembers, when they went to the vineyard on vacation a few years back. he popped into one of those expensive boutiques along the shore, bought her a sundress and a nightgown as a…late birthday present, or maybe an early one. regardless of the occasion, he had the nightgown monogrammed in classic vineyard style, her initials written in a way that make her ask why the  _s_  was in the center while the  _k_  was on the end, but the ordering never matters to him, not in comparison to the way the light blue fabric of the tee shirt style dress brings out her sleepy eyes in the morning.

“good morning,” she says, sounding much more chipper than usual as she kisses his shoulder and smiles against his skin.

glancing to her bedside clock, he ponders, “it’s eight-oh-one in the morning, you’re awake before me, and you’re smiling. all of that can mean only one thing.”

wrapping an arm over his stomach, she pulls herself up toward him in bed, says, “happy birthday.”

he smiles, laughs under his breath, then draws her into a kiss, one filled with morning breath and early-autumn warmth and something soft that only scully can contribute. though he’s familiar to kisses like these, he’ll never become accustomed to them, not ever.

“now, get up,” she says, out of bed faster than his sleepy eyes can process, faster than he thought her limbs capable of. leaning in the jamb of their bedroom door, she looks back at him, says, “i already brewed the coffee.”

ah, yes, that gets him up. slowly, he puts on a shirt and follows as she scurries down the stairs, the pep in his step waiting to come alive after it’s fueled with beautiful, gratuitous caffeine. as he walks down into the kitchen, he watches while she sticks colorful candles on a cake, little wisps of her hair falling out of her messy bun while she searches for a lighter.

“second drawer on the left,” he yawns while he pulls a mug from the cabinet, fills it up with beautiful, warm, wonderful coffee. based on the scent, she brewed the good stuff, some kind of craft roast they bought at the farmer’s market. it’s his birthday, so apparently, folger’s won’t suffice. there’s a gift bag sitting on the kitchen table as well.

she takes the lighter out, starts lighting the candles, and after a long swig of black coffee, he grits his teeth at the bitterness, looks back toward her. lighting all the other candles using an already-lit candle, she works precisely, concentration furrowing her brow; he smiles, wants to kiss the each of the little wrinkles on her forehead. each year, she bakes him the same cake, a recipe of her mother’s that he enjoyed many years back, triple-layered yellow cake with chocolate buttercream. as he walks up behind her, she places the last lit candle on the cake, looks behind herself to meet his gaze. 

“what’re you going to wish for?”

the reality is that there is nothing more he wants right now, nothing more he knows he can have. of course, he wishes for things like world peace and…he wishes things were never so dire or dark for either of them, summarizes all of those wishes with just that line. however, of the things he could wish for or want for his future, there is nothing, not when he has their life together. however, that’s all beside the point, so he asks, “don’t people usually sing before you blow out the candles?”

sucking her lips in, she eyes him. each year, she pulls this, and each year, he calls her out for it, so she mumbles a few lines of happy birthday, and as she does so, he kisses her neck, makes certain lines of hers come out on a ticklish laugh. yeah, he wouldn’t wish for anything else. 

she steps over, lets him take a deep breath and blow out the candles. he finds something so optimistic about the scent of birthday cake and blown-out candles, a feeling that until that scent dissipates, everything is safe and okay and warm. pulling out one of the candles, he licks the frosting and cake-crumbs off of the bottom while scully grabs a cake knife. 

“so, doc, we’re having cake for breakfast,” he surmises. 

“yeah,” she says, plating a piece of cake. she takes the vanilla ice cream out of the freezer, the strawberries out of the fridge. “it’s your birthday, after all.”

“seems awfully early, doesn’t it?” he asks, taking another candle out.

she plates another piece. “we always have cake right before we open presents.”

“so we’re opening presents early as well?” he questions.

“yes,” she says, not elaborating despite his pleas. 

“huh.”

she scoops melty vanilla ice cream onto each plate, adds a handful of strawberries as well. topping each plate off with a fork, she slides one plate over to his spot at the kitchen table, sits down at her own with the other. he sits down as she pushes the gift bag toward him. before he goes to pull out the tissue paper, he gives her a look, watches as she closes her eyes in annoyance.

“don’t,” is all she mutters.

“is it a puppy?” he asks.

“no.”

“socks?”

“no, but that would’ve been a  _great_  present. i’ll remember that one for next year.”

“a real-life functioning light saber?”

“you know, physicists are currently studying solid light.”

“is that a yes?”

“studying, mulder, not creating.”

“bummer.”

finally, he pulls out the tissue, finds a card and a mason jar. opening the card first, he smiles at a cartoon alien on the front, along with the  _hope your birthday is out of this world!_  written on the inside. he would insist that the card is unnecessary if he didn’t still get butterflies at the sight of the  _love, scully_ written at the bottom. then, he pulls out the mason jar, sees that it’s filled with purple-colored water and something settling on the bottom.

“it’s a glitter jar,” she explains at the sight of his obvious confusion. “at the hospital, we have some for when patients are nervous. you shake it up and just breathe until the glitter all settles. just don’t shake it too hard; when i was making it, i couldn’t find the right glue, so i’m scared the top might come off.”

softly, he shakes the jar, sets it between them as they watch the glitter start to settle. within the purple water are flecks of silver and blue, making for a galaxy of colors; trying the method, he takes a deep breath while he watches the glitter settle, but his thoughts drift away from relaxation and to images of her making this for him, knowing that he gets so immersed in his work sometimes and needs a chance to slow down. he’s already thought of a spot for this on his desk by the time that the glitter settles. 

“thank you,” he says, a small smile on his lips. 

she smiles back.

“you know, it’s a lovely day out,” she says, standing up. “we should go eat out on the porch.”

though he agrees, she’s already at the front door by the time he has a chance to respond, so he picks up his plate, follows her out onto the porch.

“okay, scully,” he says, stepping outside, “but there aren’t many places out here to-”

then, he sees it, a brand new hand-woven hammock hanging from one porch-support to the other, a hypotenuse to the porch’s railings.

“i couldn’t possibly hide it, so we had to do cake and presents early,” she explains from earlier, but he’s too excited by the hammock to care, so he walks over, runs his fingers along the intricately-woven ropes. 

a couple of months beforehand, he mentioned getting a hammock or a couple of chairs for the porch, but she brushed him off back then, said that they barely used the porch for anything other than…yoga. yes, yoga. either way, he had pushed the hammock to the back of his mind, but now, here one was.

“we’ve got to try it out,” he says, looking back toward her. “can it hold us both?”

she gives him look because of  _course_  it can hold them both, so he smiles, carefully gets on top despite the plate of cake in his hands. joining him, she gets up on the other side, nearly dribbling ice cream onto his shirt. while he lies on his back, she curls up against him on her side, picking at her cake with a fork as the hammock rocks back and forth.

“best birthday ever,” he whispers into her hair, presses a kiss to her scalp.

she laughs lightly, says, “some assembly had been required.”

“i was wondering if you could’ve reached all the way up there to hang this.”

she side-eyes him while he takes a bite. licking buttercream off of his fork, he smiles, thinks of how many birthdays he’s spent doing similar things and eating that same cake. though he can’t remember them all, he can remember this feeling, the same one he feels when he hears “ramblin’ man” on the radio or when he plays “listen to the music” off of their doobie brothers record. out in this world, there are hundreds, maybe millions, of artists who, he figures, search for this feeling, one of breathless happiness and of love that hangs in the air like the scent of blown-out candles. sopping up some ice cream with a morsel of cake, he hopes that next year can be just as wonderful as this year, and the one after that, and the one after that, and so on and so forth. when she takes some frosting onto her finger and pokes some onto his nose, he dares to believe in forever.

“so,” she asks, laughing as she looks at the dollop of chocolate on his face, “what did you wish for when you blew out the candles?”

“nothing,” he says, and it’s the truth. 

there is nothing more he needs.


	14. on the fourth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> that year, i stayed in on fourth of july. i had trouble walking and was on medication that meant i couldn't be in sunlight. i wrote this in lieu of celebrating.

she feels like a teenager, sneaking wine onto the national mall using a nalgene. though they packed opaque tumblers, she takes a sip straight from the bottle, the rosé not her favorite but still palatable and cooling.

“sharing is caring,” he jokes as he sits alongside her, his legs stretched out long while he rests back on his palms.

with her legs crossed, she leans back, passes him the bottle. technically, they’re not supposed to have alcohol on the mall, but it’s fourth of july, and she assumes a multitude of others are breaking rules like this one at this very moment. the mall is crowded, as it always is, but they got there early in the day, picnicked and played frisbee and and read up on the history that they always seem to forget until this time every year. though there are barbecues and flag-colored festivities she could join, spending her day off just hanging out is incomparably better; as she sits on their picnic blanket, a hand-woven and classic picnic basket and mulder’s backpack sitting alongside them, she figures she could stay on this little piece of the earth for days and never feel bored.

plus, they hardly ever go into the capital anymore because they no longer commute to the hoover building. now, the monuments are exciting pieces of american history rather than mile-markers, and whenever they go to the city, they take pictures of the memorials as though they’ve never seen them before. it’s a treat to be in the city, no matter why they’re there, and there’s no better place to see fireworks for the fourth than the national mall.

taking a swig of wine, mulder says, “you look cold.”

she smiles softly, gives, “i am.”

reaching into the backpack, he pulls out one of his sweatshirts, a big pullover flaunting the bureau’s logo and passes it to her. of course, he could’ve passed her the sweater she packed for herself, one that went with her skirt and tank, but they both know she would rather wear his sweatshirt, so she pulls it over her shoulders, relaxes at the scent around her. though their clothes are in the same closet, and though she’s borrowed most all of his clothes at one point or another, her heartbeat still slows to a calm, collected pace whenever she wears one of his shirts, especially when it smells like him.

by the time the fireworks begin, she has a song by the eagles stuck in her head - for the life of her, she can’t remember the title - and mulder scoots closer to her, their hips flush to each other as the first flashes of light go up over the washington monument. it’s surreal to her, watching fireworks go off in this city; though there are bound to be laws and rules and ethical reasons as to why fireworks in the district should be forbidden, a few days a year are the exception to that, a celebration of light and zest even if such light and zest is irrational. naturally, a smile comes to her lips, for her mind is suddenly so empty, her head quieter and her heart lighter. as he takes her hand in his, she smiles even bigger; though she loves the fireworks alone, they’re better when she can share them with him, even if the noises make him anxious. 

the crowd on the mall is giant, but everything other than the fireworks and him fade away for her. as bright red, white, and blue burst across the horizon, she squeezes his hand, that same song stuck in her head.  _we may lose and we may win_ , she hears, trying to remember a lyric so that she can ask him what song it is later. for now, all she wants to do is watch the fireworks and feel the senseless freedom that they bring her.

however, he interrupts, cupping his open hand around her cheek and kissing her, his mouth soft and warm in comparison to the cool night air. as she kisses him back, the smile is still on her lips, and she lets a laugh bubble up; this is perfect, all she could ever want, and  _take it easy, take it easy, don’t let the sound of your own wheels make you crazy_. she pulls back, looks up the the fireworks while he keeps his eyes on her, a silly smile across his lips. 

it’s a happy fourth indeed. 


	15. on a bad day (ii)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> if i remember correctly, this had been a requested sequel

though she’s never read any studies on it, she swears that dogs can read human emotions and comfort accordingly.

outside, mulder tries to get the charcoal grill to cooperate - though she insists every year that they should just buy a gas grill already, he claims that he’s charmed by the ambience a charcoal grill provides even if he’s made undercooked chicken on that grill too many times - while she sits inside, her pajamas already on, daggoo on her blanketed lap. catching up on the stephen colbert that’s been growing cobwebs in their dvr, she sips a cup of green tea with honey, the autumnal warmth comfortable around her. her book, a patricia highsmith novel, sits strewn alongside her, and she smiles as susan sarandon is announced as the next guest.

though she wishes she could do more to help mulder with dinner, to give back to him in some way, she knows he would refuse her help outright, would tell her to relax because of how infrequently she does just that. however, a part of her feels guilty for not doing more, especially because of how well he’s treated her all day. when she first arrived home, he merely guided her upstairs, let her take off her stale work-clothes, and crawled into bed with her while she cried. soothing her with soft words and his warm hands, he kept her company, made sure she felt safe and loved and secure. they both know how uncomfortably vulnerable grief makes her feel, so he let her know that nothing could hurt her here in their little bedroom of their rural home. thankfully, she managed to fall asleep, and once she was more alert, they went for a long walk together, their hands clasped all the while. he brought their picnic blanket and sat them down in the middle of the field, the grasses far too high, the fall warmth cozy and not over-bearing; they stopped there for maybe an hour or two, just lying on their backs and looking up at the bright blue sky.

“that one looks like a horse,” he said, pointing up at one of the clouds.

even though it didn’t look like a horse, she smiled and nodded anyway.

then, they went inside and watched a vcr of the parent trap, sharing both a bowl of popcorn and a blanket, and after the movie had ended, he went outside to start on their steaks. now, colbert sits down with susan sarandon, and scully’s starting to feel at peace.

mulder opens the front door - just the screen because the weather’s too nice to close both doors - and heads inside, asking, “have you seen that…grill spatula?”

“yes, the technical term,” she jokes, smiling and pausing colbert. “it might be in the second drawer. do you have the grill-pan out? there’s some zucchini we might as well cook up.”

“it’s not out, but i’ll grab it,” he says, taking that spatula out of the drawer. “i’ll chop up the zucchini as well.”

“let me,” she says, letting daggoo off of her lap and standing up.

though he goes to deny her, to say that she should just sit tight while he cooks, he gives her the benefit of his doubts, watches while she takes zucchinis out of the fridge and grabs her favorite cutting board, one shaped like california that was a housewarming gift ages ago from bill. while he pulls out the grill-pan, she starts to chop, asks, “seasoning preference?”

“none,” he says.

then, he hesitates but leans in anyway to kiss her cheek; with a warm smile, she glances toward him, giving a silent thank you for how comforting and accepting he’s been all day. heading back outside, he leaves the grill-pan for her to bring out whenever she’s done chopping. though she still feels her gut wrench ever-so-silently whenever she thinks about the twenty-one years since melissa’s death, she has peace of mind knowing that what missy would’ve wanted most for her is to be happy, to feel fulfilled, and to have each day feel memorable. as she peeks out one of the kitchen-windows and watches mulder finally light the charcoal, she smiles to herself.

this is exactly the life her sister would’ve wanted her to have.


	16. playing miniature golf

over the years, mulder discovered that there is only one activity at which dana scully is terrifyingly, unimaginably inept.

“great,” she sighs after she putts her little purple golf ball straight into the too-blue fake river next to the course. though mulder watched her swing, he still can’t fathom how exactly her ball got from the green to all the way over there. with a look of disgust, she fishes the ball from the drink, asks, “do you mind if i try again?”

“nope,” he says with a smile, the same response he always gives.

nodding, she sets up on the green, her hands high on her child’s-sized club - much to her chagrin, all of the adult sizes are too big for her - as she putts once more. this time, her ball goes softly across the green, straight through the windmill on the center of this course, and ends up a few feet away from the hole. by scully’s standards, that’s a par.

“your turn,” she says almost cockily as she steps back.

he pockets their scorecard - to no one’s surprise, he’s winning - and sets his blue ball - he couldn’t resist the joke - down on the green. squinting, he angles his body, dramatically finds the proper putting position while scully crosses her arms and rolls her eyes. then, he stands straight up, touches his finger to his tongue, and holds his hand up, pretending to test the wind while merely hoping to see her smile.

“par three?” he asks.

“i don’t know what that means.”

with one strong hit, he putts the ball, sends it through the windmill at a too-fast speed, so he winces; she might end up winning this hole. just as he thinks his luck has run out, the ball clatters into the hole.

“hole in one!” she calls with a smile, stealing their scorecard from his pocket and marking it down with her own pencil. he’d written their names in as  _doctor_  and  _mister_  as some sly marriage hint that she pretends not to pick up on. “winner buys a margherita pizza after this?”

“my, my, scully,” he frets jokingly as they head to the end of the whole. “isn’t it a bit late in the game to place bets?”

“i could always make a comeback,” she chastises as she putts once more, clearly missing the hole. frowning dramatically, she tries again, still missing.

as the sun begins to set beyond the dinky little golf course, mulder starts thinking about a margherita pizza, about the ones at skippy’s so close by. the last time they went there, they ordered a pizza and garlic knots, the scent of oregano and marinara hanging in their clothes as they arrived home that night. in that little place, with its red vinyl booths and weathered wood interior and bar-like lighting, he nuzzled her cheek and left a little grease imprint there, one she didn’t notice until she washed her face that night. he still remembers the garlicky-parmesan taste of her kisses.

with a clunk, the ball goes in, and she exclaims, “aha!”

his stomach grumbles. maybe he won’t mind being the winner who pays for dinner.

“how many putts was that?” he asks as she scribbles something down on the scorecard.

“four,” she says, pocketing the scorecard and picking up her ball, ready to go to the next hole.

“really?” he asks incredulously, giving her a look.

“it was four!” she insists while he follows her.

“the truth is out there, scully,” mulder jokes, “and that truth is that you had seven putts.”

she rolls her eyes but smiles.

“yeah, you’re definitely paying for dinner tonight.”


	17. buying girl scout cookies

“mulder, i don’t have enough cash in my wallet right now for that many boxes of thin mints.”

“is there an atm near the hospital?”

“mulder!” she exclaims. “that’s not the point i’m trying to make!”

one of her patients, a little girl with cystic fibrosis, was so excited that morning when scully had walked into her hospital room.

“doctor scully! doctor scully!” the little girl exclaimed. “my troop is selling cookies. would you like to buy some?”

on the other side of the room, the little girl’s mother gave scully a look, one that said that scully needn’t buy cookies out of some form of obligation, but truthfully, she and mulder had been searching for a place to buy some for a while.

“i’d love to buy some,” scully said with a warm smile, “but i have to call my friend first to see if he wants any.”

now, she’s on the phone with mulder, who thinks twenty-four boxes of thin mints is reasonable.

“scully, it’s simple math,” he insists. “there’s two of us, and there are twelve months in a year. if we each consume one box of thin mints per month, then that’s twenty-four boxes if we don’t plan on buying again until next year.”

biting her lip, she sees the logic, but then, she forcibly shakes her head, insists, “we at least need variety.”

“fine,” he says with an audible pout. “you like the samoas. let’s get some of those.”

“okay. i’ll get a box for each of us,” she says, pulling a pad of paper out of her lab coat and starting to write that down. “and tagalongs?”

“two boxes of tagalongs,” he confirms.

“i want thanks-a-lots too,” she says, writing that down as well.

“what about trefoils?” he asks.

staying quiet, she grimaces.

“never mind,” he says. “no one likes trefoils.”

smiling to herself, she goes over the list, counts the boxes, tries to add up the price in her head.

“now, thin mints,” she says ominously.

“twelve boxes.”

“mulder, no.”

“fine. ten.”

“no.”

“eight?”

“no.”

“seven.”

“mulder.”

“can we agree on four?”

“we can agree on four.”

“how about five? that way, we’ll have an even number of boxes.”

she rolls her eyes.

“bye, mulder,” she says.

“bye, scully. i love you.”

“love you too,” she says, quieter this time.

“not as much as i love thin mints, though.”

“mulder!”

“just kidding!” he laughs. “just kidding.”


	18. at a cycling class

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this remains to this day the most embarrassing thing i have ever written

“now, we’re all going to up our resistance!” the all-too-perky - in more ways than one, scully enjoyably observes - instructor at the gym says.

with three rows of ten stationary bikes in front of her, the instructor needs a microphone just to get her point across, and even then, mulder hesitates to listen.

“up your resistance,” scully mumbles to him as he waits a beat to long.

begrudgingly, he does as asked, and, oh no, this is going to really hurt tomorrow.

going to the gym had been scully’s idea; after their recent doctor’s appointments, just yearly check-ups, she went on a motivation kick, suddenly wishing to relive her weight-lifting days of yore. unfortunately, she wants him to join in on this kick, but fortunately, she’s wearing a pair of leggings that he likes today, ones that make her-

“and up your resistance again!” the instructor cheers out, almost laughing.

by now, mulder’s tee shirt is sweat through, and wisps of scully’s hair hang out of her ponytail.

“c'mon! spin out all that bad juju!” the instructor says, speeding up on her stationary bike.

“what’s juju?” mulder asks scully.

“if you speed up on a stationary bike, do you actually gain any speed at all?” scully asks mulder.

“you get inquisitive when you work out.”

“you just get sweaty.”

he smirks, his legs much slower than those around him. though he figures he should make the most of the class and put in more effort, he knows that he can’t go much harder, that his low-impact exercises of late pale in comparison to a spin class with the world’s perkiest instructor. tuning out the rest of the room, he leans back a little, tries to sneak a peek of scully’s-

“hey! you in the knicks tee-shirt!” the instructor calls. “stop peeping her ass and get pedaling!”

at that, scully tries desperately to laugh, and with a huff, mulder pedals harder.

“scully?” he says, panting from his newfound speed.

“what?”

“i think i hate cycling.”


	19. at the beach

in the kitchen of their rental home, he squeezes lemons by hand, the juice and a few seeds trickling into a glass pitcher. the place is cool and airy, filled with oak accents, pale blue curtains, and tchotchkes reflecting seaside living; on almost every windowsill, pieces of seaglass and colorful shells sit, and driftwood furniture on the deck faces the ocean. from the kitchen, he can look out beyond sliding glass doors and peek over that deck so that he can see the sea, a little beach sitting right beyond the house. outside, scully lounges on a chair in the sand, her book on her lap and spf 50 alongside her. though he bought her that big, floppy sunhat as a joke, she wears it anyway. 

though he has spent many a day consumed by a good book, this day is a rare luxury for her, so he’s milled around the house while she simply sat out there and read by the sea. when he heads out there, he’ll see if she wants to play chess on the ancient board that the owners left in this house later, ask what she wants for dinner. he hears that the lobster shack down the road is just to die for, and he hardly feels like cooking; as he adds sugar to the pitcher and stirs with a wooden spoon, he tries to think of a way to name-drop that shack to her in a nonchalant way. the sun is only beginning to go down, the day turning a warm shade of orange; he pours lemonade into two glasses, then walks out of the house and down to meet her on the beach. 

out here, the world is calm, a different calm from their own home; though this place is far from isolated - downtown is only ten miles away - the little block of houses around them is quiet and private, an escape by the sea. as he crouches down next to her chair, sits in the sand alongside her, she startles, says, “i wasn’t expecting to see you there." 

"have you see anyone out here all day?” he asks, passing her a glass. 

“oh, thank you,” she says warmly as she takes the sweating glass. “and i’ve seen a few people. one of the neighbors stopped by to say hi, and there have been passersby, but mostly, i’ve been undisturbed.”

“the smiths?” mulder asks, referring to the neighbors. 

“yes,” she says, then takes a sip of lemonade. 

“did you meet any of their kids?”

“no. did you?" 

"yeah,” he says. “the three of them came knocking in search of a fourth member for their pickup basketball game." 

"and you obliged,” she says, smiling to herself. 

“of course, and i’ll have you know that those kids are…remarkably good at basketball." 

"did you get your ass kicked?" 

"well, i wouldn’t use those words  _exactly_ , but similar ones might be…" 

though he goes to finish the sentence, she laughs, shaking her head at him, so he lets the sentence fade away. without a hint of makeup on and with her hair textured from the salt, she’s a different kind of beautiful from her usual; her freckles are out, as bright as ever, and her nose is red from too much sun. as the night had grown colder, she put on a lightweight white button-up, one meant to shield her fair skin from the sun, and beneath it, her navy swimsuit, one that matches the chipping polish on her nails, pokes out. she accidentally left her razor at home. though she wants to cover them up, he loves the little greying roots of her hair; the scent of lavender sunscreen hangs on her skin. as she takes another sip of lemonade, he sees just how much brighter her eyes are, how much she needed this vacation. he takes her open hand in his, looks out at the ocean. 

"this is a nice spot,” he says, nodding once. 

“yeah,” she deeply exhales. 

“do you have any thoughts about what we should make for dinner?" 

sighing, she groans, "i don’t want to cook." 

"there’s a lobster shake just down the road,” he offers, glad that neither of them want to cook. "i’ve heard that their takeaway is great.“ 

"so long as i don’t have to cook or get dressed, i’m in." 

"okay,” he says, nodding. 

he’ll call their order in eventually, but for now, he just wants to sit by the ocean and hold her warm hand. with the scent of the sea, the sound of her breathing, and the taste of sweet lemonade on his tongue, he feels relaxation deep in his bones. though he’s always searched for life on other planets - and though this planet has recently given him reasons to look elsewhere based on the news - there are some parts of his life on this planet that leave him in joyful wonder, in awe of how beautiful and pure these pleasures feel. plus, she bought lingerie at a boutique in town yesterday - he saw the box in her suitcase but dared not open it - and he’s genuinely looking forward to, well, inspecting her purchases. 

she squeezes his hand, then lets go. 

“i’m so close to the end of this book,” she says, opening up to where her bookmark sits. “i’ve been rapt all day." 

"i’m glad,” he says, remembering how stressful and long her last few weeks have been. 

leaning forward, he kisses her cheek, watches a little smile spread on her freckled face. 

“call me in when dinner’s here?” she asks as he stands up. 

“of course." 

he squeezes her shoulder, then heads back inside.


	20. in the bath

“what was that store called?”

“lush,” she says as she drops the chalky white ball - she called it a bath bomb, whatever that means - into the filled tub. as the ball starts to fizz, he finally understands the title. “they moved in right next to macy’s, so i decided to check it out.”

“and to buy weapons for our bathroom,” he jokes. “next up, toilet grenades.”

giving him a look, she unbuttons her slacks, starts to undress.

“this one has ylang ylang and vanilla,” she explains as she pulls off her shirt, “both of which are supposed to be relaxing.”

“ylang ylang?” he scoffs. “where does that come from?”

standing naked before him, she crosses her arms over her chest, offers, “you don’t have to join me if you don’t want to.”

no, he wants to. he really wants to, so he unbuttons his pants while she sticks a toe into the bath, a sly smile on her lips. on the left side of her neck is a little patch of sunburn, probably from driving home, and her freckles are in full summer bloom; somehow, the red ink in her tattoo is still as bright as it was when he first saw it. while she sinks into the tub, he pulls his shirt off, listens to her as she deeply sighs.

“good ylang ylang?” he asks.

with her eyes shut and a content smile on her lips, she says, “very good.”

after she moves toward the center of the big tub, he climbs in behind her, the water perfectly warm, whatever that bath bomb was leaving an aromatic white sheen to the water. as he settles in, she leans back against his chest, her heartbeat starting to slow.

“how was work?” he asks softly, warmly.

“hard,” she frets.

“how so?”

“two new patients started experimental treatments,” she explains. “i had to assist on both, so i was booked all day.”

“not a lot of down time?”

“none at all.”

he hums in disdain, brings one hand up to rub her shoulder.

“well, you’ve got the rest of the night off,” he says, tracing her shoulder-blade with his thumb, “and you don’t have to work tomorrow.”

unsure of his implied message, she says, “i know.”

“therefore, if we wanted to do something relaxing,” he keeps his voice deep and gravelly as he draws circles against her hip, “we could do it all day.”

she hums a response, starting to see where he’s going.

“and how do you suggest we relax tomorrow?” she asks, turning to face him.

“well, the zoo is always an-”

“mulder!”

“what?”

“we’re not going to the zoo tomorrow!”

“why not?” he pouts. “you love the zoo. i love the zoo. it’s summer. we should go to the zoo.”

“we aren’t going to the zoo.”

“scully, give me one good reason why we shouldn’t go to the zoo,” he says, staring her down.

giving him a look, she says, “because I’ve had a long week, and i don’t want to go to the zoo tomorrow.”

“they have red pandas,” he says. “you love red pandas.”

she closes her eyes in annoyance.

“plus, they kind of look like you. it’s cute.”

“mulder!”

deeply, he sighs, the scent of ylang ylang filling their bathroom.

“fine,” he says. “we’ll stay home tomorrow.”

“great,” she nods.

“great,” he huffs.

then, he stays quiet, so she sinks further into the bath, breathes in that expensive bath bomb. though she rarely takes time to relax, she spent most of the afternoon dreaming of a bath tonight, the thought of a warm, quiet soak so elusive that she purchased that bath bomb just for the occasion. as he brings his hands back to her shoulders and massages, she closes her eyes, relishes in this feeling. bringing his hands farther down her back, he kisses her neck, traces her tattoo with his thumb. she feels warm and cozy, curled up against him and held softly.

“so,” he says, his voice gravelly once more, “how does the zoo sound now?”

“we aren’t going to the zoo tomorrow,” she whispers back to him.

“i can think of something else we can do all day.”

“really?”

“yeah, and it doesn’t involve leaving the house.”

she hums a contented response.

“but it might involve the porch,” he offers.

“oh, really?”

mumbling under his breath, he adds, “and maybe just a little whipped cream….”

laughing lightly, she chuffs, “good to know.”

as he pulls her closer, kisses her neck, she figures that bath bomb was a good idea.


	21. on a picnic

he pours her a glass of sangria while she puts on even more sunscreen.

“if you put any more of that on, you’ll turn into a ghost,” he jokes, sampling a sip from her glass. though she prefers red, they only had white wine in the house, so they mixed some up with lemons and limes, topped with mint from their garden. cold and refreshing, the drink demands another sip.

“if i were to put any less on,” she counters, taking her glass from him, “i’ll turn into a lobster. which would you prefer?”

leaning back on his forearms, he purses his lips, says, “depends. would there be melted butter involved?”

“mulder.”

“would i be in maine or germany at the time?”

“mulder.”

“have you ever had german lobster? i haven’t, but i doubt it’s as good as-”

“mulder!”

then, he quiets, pours himself a glass.

though summer has reached its peak, the day isn’t too hot; a light breeze drifts by every so often, swaying the tall and golden grasses around their picnic blanket, and the sun is blocked from severity by a partly-cloudy sky. she wears a blue cotton sundress, one she bought before they were even together, and the skirt bellows out around her knees, a brassiere a foreign idea when the dress is so much more comfortable for her without it. with the handmade basket she’s had forever, they packed a lunch that morning, one of brie and pellegrino and whole grain crackers, along with homemade fig jam and grapes. he braided her hair while she packed it all up, and as little pieces of her hair fall toward her freckled face, he smiles.

she’s so beautiful.

“we might need a new blanket,” she frets as she opens the basket, takes out the crackers. “this one’s taken a beating.”

she made this blanket ages ago, hand-stitched it and reinforced the bottom so that they could use it on wet grass, and ever since, it’s been a staple in their lives, a traveling companion and a memorable friend. next to his foot is the hole they burned in it when they went camping six years ago, mulder’s fire-building skills having gone south. on her side of the blanket, there’s a little patch she sewed on after a particularly raucous dave matthews band concert, one that proved that scully, alcohol, and high heels weren’t a good combination. the green blanket is half stains and half restitched tears; certainly, it’s taken a beating, but he can’t bear to think of making a new one.

“this one’s fine,” he rationalizes. “pass me a cracker.”

obliging, she hands him a couple, and as he bites down on one, another breeze comes, rustling up her hair. in the sun, she looks warm and luminous, like a beacon. then, she lies on her back, sangria in one hand and her book in the other. a teenager at their library had recommended scott westerfeld to her, and to mulder’s surprise, scully was reading a third book of his.

“c'mere,” he says, lying down and motioning for her.

confused, she sits up, scoots over toward him; then, he taps on his stomach, so she understands his hint, rests her head on his belly as she lies down again. her hair is warm against his shirt.

while she reads, he watches the clouds move by overhead, wonders what each one looks like. that first one, it’s definitely an elephant; he can see the square body and the little trunk with ease. the next one is a harpsichord, but he may be wrong, for he’s unsure he can remember exactly what a harpsichord looks like. then, he squints, looks closer and sees a heart there instead, the simplest of shapes to see in a cloud. laughing to himself, he disturbs scully, makes her ask, “what’s so funny?”

“this cloud,” he says, pointing up, “looks just like a heart.”

shielding her eyes from the sun and staring up, she says, “no, it doesn’t.”

“why not?”

“there’s no aorta,” she says, then goes back to reading.

to his surprise, she’s not joking, so he shakes his head, goes to pick up his own book and read. as she flips her page, he notices that his pen-marks from last night are still on her skin. with his pen, he tapped her forearm while they got into bed.

“these remind me of something,” he said as she settled in.

“my freckles?” she asked. “of what?”

“cassiopeia, the queen,” he explained, uncapping his pen. “do you mind?”

she shook her head, then watched as he traced from one freckle to another.

“here’s ruchbah,” he pointed out as he connected two freckles. “the next one is shadir, then caph.”

she remembered the constellation, watched as he finished it across her skin. though she hadn’t seen in the constellation in a while, the resemblance between the sky and her skin was remarkably close; the angles were the same.

“did you know that this constellation shines 40,000 times brighter than the sun?” he asked.

“really?” she asked, surprised.

“yeah,” he said, lazily kissing her wrist. “just like you.”

though she hasn’t showered yet today, he’s surprised she hasn’t washed it off yet, but he likes that it’s still there. he likes the constellations within her, even when those constellations get mad that he put her wool socks in the dryer.

“scully?” he says, interrupting her book once more.

she hums a response, stays focused on her page.

“i love you,” he says.

softly, she smiles, then turns to sloppily kiss his stomach.

“love you too,” she says. “now, let me read.”

“okay,” he gives.

he swears he can see cygnus on her shoulder, but he saves that thought for another time.


	22. after seeing ghostbusters

“that was the greatest movie i’ve ever seen.”

“it was pretty good.”

“no, scully, it was more than just pretty good,” mulder says, his 3D glasses still on his face. “that was a masterpiece. no remake will ever surpass that. it wasn’t even a remake! no, it was a revival, through and through.”

“i’m just glad sigourney weaver made an appearance,” scully shrugs, taking off her own glasses. “i wasn’t sure she would be in it.”

“they were all so funny and so smart!” mulder exclaims. “they knew so much about science! they put in so much research and really gave their lives to their craft. they’re all amazing.”

“yeah, they were cool.”

“they weren’t just cool; they were spectacular!” mulder says, so excited that his hands start making spirit fingers. “i think abby was my favorite character. she didn’t care what anyone thought and pursued her passion; plus, she was such a supportive friend to all of the other ghostbusters.”

scully nods, considering this, but as she goes to chime in with her favorite, mulder changes his mind.

“actually, i think patty was my favorite character,” he confirms. “though she wasn’t a scientist, she still was the one who used science to save the day. she thought outside of the box, and with her knowledge of new york culture, she was such a valuable asset to the team. i wish she could tell me more about all of the haunted places in new york.”

contemplating his answer, she nods, starts, “mulder-”

“no, holtzmann was my favorite,” mulder confirms. “she was always experimenting with crazy science. how cool is that?”

scully liked holtzman too, only for alarmingly different reasons.

“fine, erin was my favorite,” mulder finishes. “even though people made fun of her, and even though no one understood her, and even though she spent so many years trying to get away from her past, she still was able to triumph as ghost girl. she overpowered all those high schoolers who made fun of her. she was so defiant.”

“though i’m happy to hear that you liked the movie, we do need to leave the theater,” scully says, lifting off his glasses.

“we could catch the ten o'clock showing if we run.”

“maybe next weekend, but not today.”

dramatically pouting, he stands up, follows her as she leads them out of the theater.

“you know what?” mulder says as they walk into the theater’s parking lot; as always, she can’t remember where she parked. “we would’ve made great ghostbusters.”

huffing, scully gives, “we practically were ghostbusters, mulder.”

“but we didn’t have proton packs or that cool hearse,” mulder points out, and aha! there’s her car. “we had a work dress code, so i had to wear all of those ties while you wore all of those adorable pantsuits. wearing comfortable and practical jumpsuits to work would’ve thrown up so many red flags.”

rolling her eyes, she unlocks the car, climbs into the driver’s seat.

“who was your favorite?” he asks as he gets into the car.

“erin,” she says with a nod.

she starts the car, still has the song from the movie’s credits stuck in her head.

“why her?” he asks.

“because even though she never intended to end up in the ghostbusting business, her scientific mind and surprising courage made her prosper as a ghostbuster,” scully explains. “though she didn’t end up with the tenure she wanted, she still ended up happy and fulfilled with her work.”

then, he nods, smiles to himself at her reasoning. whenever they watch movies, she always picks up on something he altogether missed; he loves hearing about movies from her perspective.

“i liked holtzmann too,” scully offhandedly gives as she pulls out of her parking spot.

“why?” mulder asks again.

smirking to herself, scully admits, “because she was hot.”

he shakes his head. yeah, she always picks up on something he misses.


	23. at a motel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is based on sea breeze motel in new brunswick, where i had been staying at the time. i posted pictures of it in the fog [here](http://alicecomfort.tumblr.com/post/147661520827/this-place-had-total-x-files-vibes) and in the sunlight [here](http://alicecomfort.tumblr.com/post/148254929797/same-motel-different-less-foggy-day). it was my parents, our two dogs, and me to one room, and the tiny tv there got mostly french channels. we found gran torino on tv, and it gave me a panic attack. i wrote this on my phone in an attempt to calm myself down.

when he wakes, her side of the bed is empty, cold, and still a little damp; getting up, he looks through the sliding glass doors of their room, can just make out her red hair in the fog. her back to him, she stands just at the edge of the rocky beach beyond their motel, her gaze focused on the ocean. as pisces as can be, he smiles to himself as he puts on his shirt and shoes, then goes out to meet her.

they’re in new brunswick, but the weather and the surroundings still feel like maine, where they passed through in order to get here. though the motel is small, only five units to its name, their room is warm and pleasant, and the view beyond it - when the fog rolls out, that is - takes his breath away, a stony bay on the ocean with evergreens all around. walking up alongside her, he cuffs the pant-legs of his pajamas, hopes not to get too sandy.

“kind of reminds me of old times,” he reminisces, looking out on the foggy sea and remembering the rainy, humid towns they milled through while working x-files. he can picture them both, her holding a little umbrella while he crouches underneath it, her height leaving the umbrella too low for him.

“it’s prettier than old times,” she says, giving him a look.

“the sheets still felt soggy, just like old times.”

“yes, but we got to share them,” she says, still looking out at the ocean.

whenever she says things like that - especially at times like this, when they’re together on a long vacation and she’s standing by the foggy sea, her little floral pajama pants still on, his sweatshirt keeping her warm - he forces himself to take a step back, to remember days when living like this was his wildest and most beautiful dream. if he doesn’t remind himself of that, he fears he’ll forget, and he never wants to forget just how much he loves this life, just how much he loves her. the second part is hard to forget; the first, however, seems fleeting enough that he wants to stay cautious.

“plus, they were damp because we’re by the ocean,” she explains, taking his hand. “the windows were open when we got here. a little mist is all you need to get damp sheets.”

he hums a response, then pulls her closer to him, kisses the side of her head.

“do you think the restaurant here will serve us breakfast in our pajamas?” he mumbles against her hair.

the restaurant, right next to the motel units, boasted the best crab and lobster in this side of new brunswick; though the establishment was a bit shabby and clearly family-run, he figured the food would be good.

“they might if we ask nicely,” she jokes; though she’s currently breaking that personal rule, scully abhors being seen in her pajamas in public.

“are you driving first, or am i driving first?”

they still have a long drive ahead of them; though they flew to albany, they rented a car there and headed north, looking to make a road trip of her vacation days. though they both wanted a rustic trip, neither of them wanted to camp, so they decided to drive to nova scotia instead. unlike in the old days, they skipped over the least expensive rental cars and went for a hatchback, heartily inspected any inns, motels, or bed-and-breakfasts they could stay in so that they could avoid any creepy establishments. somehow, he’s the one who packed more, his leather bags taking up more space in the back than her suitcase and little vera bradley duffel do.

“i’m driving first,” she confirms.

“how many hours is it to halifax?”

“four, maybe,” she guesses, then sighs. “i need caffeine.”

smirking, he offers, “pajama breakfast?”

she steps back from him, crosses her arms.

“it’ll be disrespectful if we wear pajamas into their restaurant,” she counters.

dramatically, he pouts, so she rolls her eyes.

“fine,” she accepts. “but we’re leaving a nice tip.”

“agreed,” he says, taking her hand. “now, let’s get breakfast. i’m starving.”

furrowing her brow, she starts walking with him toward the restaurant, says, “i thought you never felt hungry first thing in the morning.”

as he grimaces, she laughs.

“you want coffee.”

“scully, you cannot fathom how much i want coffee right now.”

shaking her head, she walks with him through the fog. a little caffeine will suit them both nicely.


	24. before bedtime

“i can go to the drugstore tomorrow if you need a refill.”

shaking his nearly-empty bottle of pills as though it’s a maraca, mulder admits, “that’s probably a good idea.”

she needs more cholesterol pills anyway, so she makes a mental note to add that stop to her commute tomorrow. luckily, her workload isn’t too hefty at the moment; she can afford to plan stops along the way. after having case upon case pile up at the hospital, she’s content to slow down, to spend more time than she usually does on little parts of her day. she even came home early enough to help mulder with dinner, something she typically can only do on weekends.

when they renovated their home, they put a double-sink in the bathroom, and ever since, she’s loved their little nighttime ritual alongside each other, close enough to chat but far enough not to feel crowded. his sink is always messy, an errant bottle of aftershave strewn to the side while the regular toothpaste remains uncapped, and though her sink is equally haphazard, she claims a method to her ways. the makeup stays in the bag, her toothbrush and sensitive-formula toothpaste are in line with the sink, the cleansers are on the right, and the lotions are on the left; it’s cluttered, but it’s organized.

“scully?” he asks, wetting his face in his sink.

humming a response, she looks toward him, squeezes face wash onto her palm.

“do you ever realize how strange all of this is?”

rubbing the soap between her palms and starting to massage it onto her face, she frets, “you’ll have to be more specific.”

“the day-to-day, the domesticity,” he elaborates, picking up his toothbrush. “dogs don’t do it. foxes don’t do it. why do we do it? and furthermore, do people on other planets do it?”

“first of all, i know one fox who does it,” she points out, “and second, i’m pretty sure people on other planets do it. otherwise, those planets wouldn’t be populated at all.”

“ha ha,” he huffs sarcastically. “in all seriousness, scully, do you think other people out there hover over their sinks and chat with their spouses every night? do you think they enjoy it? does it bring them a sense of cleanliness, of self-preservation?”

“does it bring you any of those things?”

“yes, of course,” he says. “i just don’t know how things like this could transcend galaxies when they can’t even transcend species.”

“but you want things like these to transcend galaxies,” she adds.

“of course i do,” he says while she washes the cleanser off of her face. “it’s the little things, you know? i want them to know how good our little things feel.”

“why?” she asks, patting her face dry with a towel.

“because i like doing this.” he motions with his toothbrush, circling the room. “i like talking to you at the end of the day. if i can feel joy from that, then i hope extraterrestrial life can too.”

she looks down, smiles to herself. if she wanted to, she could deadpan a response, some sarcastic way of saying that that’s the most romantic thing she’s ever heard, but she keeps quiet. her routine finished for the night, she pads over to him, stands on tiptoe to that she can kiss his stubbled cheek.

“brush your teeth, mulder,” she says, walking out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, “just like all the aliens do every night.”


	25. at night

around eleven-thirty, something stirs him from sleep; groggily, he looks around for a cause, sees scully sitting up in bed. if it’s passed eleven and scully isn’t asleep, then there’s a definitive reason, so he slowly sits up and joins her. at the sight of him, she grimaces.

“i didn’t mean to wake you,” she frets under her breath.

“it’s okay,” he says. “what’s on your mind?”

she gives him a look, says, “i just can’t sleep, mulder. that’s all.”

returning the look, he asks, “do you need anything? there’s melatonin somewhere around here.”

she lets out a deep breath, closes her eyes in indecision. on nights like this, he wishes her pride and vulnerability would swap places, that she could open up to him with practiced ease, but she’s scully, and if there’s anything he knows about scully, it’s that she needs to be coaxed and to feel comfortably in control. as always, he offers both.

“a cup of tea would be nice,” she offers.

“okay,” he says, standing up while his joints creak in protest.

while he walks down to the kitchen, she follows, her steps softer and farther apart than his. over the last few days, he could tell that something was up; her spirits weren’t as bright, her mind was exhausted at the end of each day, and she seemed to crash as soon as she got home, to fall onto their couch and just breathe once her day came to a close. though he asked at times, a soft question of how work was or of how she was feeling, she didn’t let on to anything being different, and he trusted that if she wanted to talk, she would, so he let it go and didn’t push too hard. however, a sleepless night means more for her than just some exhaustion at the end of a workday does; if she can’t sleep, then he’ll push for more.

filling the kettle with water, he hears her pull out a chair and sit down at the kitchen table, her movements quiet. he lights the stove, puts the kettle on, springs for their tin of chamomile tea. setting two mugs and her favorite blue teapot on the counter, he adds a couple teaspoons of loose-leaf to the pot. then, he joins her at the table, where she looks uncomfortably rapt in thought.

“what’re you thinking about?” he asks, his hands folded on the table.

at that, she sighs, says, “i’m just stressed out.”

“about what?” he asks.

“work.”

“how so?”

taking a deep breath, she admits, “there’s too much of it. we have too many active cases going right now. if i’m not with a patient, then i’m working on a patient’s treatment plan or assisting on a surgery. i didn’t even have time to eat lunch today.”

“by law, you’re allowed forty-five minutes.”

she gives him a look.

“or so i’ve heard,” he adds.

with a little smile, she shakes her head at him, says, “i just couldn’t stop, you know? I figured that five more minutes on one case wouldn’t suck me in, and then, i looked at my watch, and it was four in the afternoon, and i had somewhere else to be.”

“can you leave from certain cases?” he asks. “if you’re assisting, i figure they could find someone to fill in, especially if it makes your caseload more manageable.”

then, she sighs, and he can tell what that means; though a doctor could definitely do that, she wouldn’t let herself do that. begrudgingly, he respects that stubbornness and pride.

“i just need to power through,” she figures, “but i can’t get my head out of work-mode. i can’t stop thinking about all of it.”

at that, the kettle hisses, so he stands up, rests a hand on her shoulder before he walks over to take the kettle off. pouring hot water into the teapot, he listens as she stands up and walks over to him, stands alongside him. without shoes on, she’s so tiny, so when she wraps her arm around his waist, her shoulder stretches up, throws her shoulders off.

“thank you,” she says, “for this.”

putting the kettle down, he kisses her scalp, puts the teapot’s lid on. they both know she doesn’t need to hear a little speech on how he’s always willing to do this for her; at this point, that understanding is so deeply ingrained that it never needs saying.

the scent of warm chamomile at night is always relaxing for him; as she relaxes against him, he knows it does the same for her. thankfully, she starts to soften, her mind finally shifting from work-mode to home-mode. when he pours them both a mug, she yawns.

“tired?” he asks with a little smile.

she nods a few times, takes her mug while he leads them upstairs.

“why don’t i go with you to work tomorrow,” he offers, “and walk around town until you’re done?”

“you’ll be so bored,” she says, sitting down on her side of the bed.

“the library there is enough like my office here, and i’m dying for some of that stew from the coffee shop in town,” he insists. “plus, i want to use the forty-five minutes, which you are allowed by law, scully, to take you to lunch.”

softly, she smiles to herself.

“that would be nice,” she says, then takes a sip of her tea.

“okay,” he grins. “what time do you plan on heading out of here.”

“seven.”

at that, he groans, puts his tea down on his bedside-table, and flings himself back against the bed dramatically, and she laughs, genuinely laughs.

“we can make it seven-fifteen, but beyond that, you’re pushing it,” she teases, climbing under the covers.

he went all the way to the arctic for her once; he surely can wake up early for her, even if that seems more grueling than the far north ever did.


	26. watching stranger things

“november of 1983, huh?” mulder says, wrapping his arm around her on the couch. she extends out her blanket for him, daggoo curled up at his hip. “what were you doing in november of ‘83, scully?”

huffing, she frets, “studying, probably.”

“ah, yes, the life of a physics undergrad,” he says blissfully. “i would imagine that i was stoned at the time.”

“be quiet. i can’t hear this if you keep talking.”

since the morning, the weather stayed chilly, heavy rain forcing them to stay inside instead of going to the farmer’s market as they’d planned. because they have hardly made use of their netflix account this month, they figure they might as well use what they’re paying for and watch something. this show was the first in mulder’s automated list of recommendations, so they put it on, no further context given. 

“hawkins national laboratory, department of energy,” he narrates as those words appear onscreen. “i sense a conspiracy.”

“you always sense a conspiracy.”

he considers the statement, begrudgingly nods in agreement. 

a man dressed in a labcoat runs toward an elevator; with flashing lights in the background onscreen, they both can tell that something is about to go wrong. then, the man starts screaming as he’s sucked up in the elevator, some kind of monster attacking him as the elevator closes.

“i like this show,” mulder whispers to her while the man is mauled.

“we have the rule,” she says with authority. “we watch the pilot and one more episode, and then, we conclude whether or not we’ll keep watching.”

“i’m just saying that i like it,” he says, then kisses the side of her head. “and that we should forego that rule and just watch this for the rest of the day.”

as she rolls her eyes, four preteen boys are playing a board game onscreen, dungeons and dragons if he’s remembering correctly. one of them frets that if they find the demogorgon, then they’re toast, and of course, one of them plays the demogorgon, so mulder laughs.

“did you play games like that one as a kid?” she asks.

“oh, all the time,” he says, “only i rarely had others to play with.”

“i’ll play one with you sometime.”

“those games require at least three people,” he sighs. then, he jokes, “we could always set the dog up as a player.”

at that, she gives him a look, but as she turns back to the television, he sobers, can tell that something is on her mind; her eyes seem farther out than they were before, her face paler. he swallows, turns back to the show.

the boys start arguing over casting a protection spell or sending a fireball - fireball would obviously be mulder’s choice - and then, one plays the fireball, his dice rolling out of sight. of course, one kid’s mom decides to show up right then, ruining all of the fun with the threat of bedtime. though he doubts he’ll ever have the chance to witness such a thing for himself, he can imagine scully doing the same, being the parent who polices bedtime and interrupts board game campaigns for the good of the entire household. that’s the thing about preteens, he figures; they’re simultaneously too old and too young for their parents. however, he can guess that scully, despite being the behavior police, would also be the parent their children turned to in times of need, regardless of the children’s ages at the time.

their child, he corrects, then feels his mind empty and his heartbeat become too prevalent. focus on the show, he tells himself as he forces those emotions to the back of his mind.

as two of the kids have a bike-race home, scully adds, “i like the background music.”

“me too,” he says blankly.

after his friend arrives at his house, a lone kid rides home, his headlight starting to flash; something must be up. then, a tall, shadowed monster appears before the kid, and scully jumps in her seat, surprised. pulling her closer, he watches while the kid crashes on his bike, falls into a ditch. looking up, the kid can see the monster coming, so he starts to run away, but as he finds his house and heads in, he knows the monster is still following him. though he tries to call for help, his home’s phone won’t work, and the monster keeps coming closer. he runs to the shed, takes out a shotgun, and tries to protect himself, but the monster finds him there, and then, the boy disappears.

as the theme starts to play, mulder asks, “what are your thoughts so far?”

“i like it,” she shrugs, “but i’ll only reach a conclusion after the pilot and another episode, as usual.”

then, the title appears, “the vanishing of will byers.” funny last name, he thinks bittersweetly as he wonders what byers would think of a missing william who shares his surname. then, his heart sinks.

_william is missing._

suddenly, scully picks up the remote and turns the television off, standing quickly and removing herself. before he can think to follow her, she heads into the kitchen, manages with her back to him, “i don’t want to watch this anymore.”


	27. washing the dog

“no, scully. scully. scully, grab him. scully.”

“mulder, i can’t grab him,” she says slowly, anger evident as she closes her eyes. “he’s soaking wet. i can’t get a grip.”

with that, daggoo makes a run for it once more, splashing water out of the tub and onto mulder’s lap. he grimaces, manages to pick daggoo up under the haunches, and set the dog back into the water-filled tub. apparently, daggoo hates baths, something neither of them realized until now.

“get the soap,” mulder says, nodding toward the bottle on the sink.

because the kitchen sink is full of dishes - his fault, he’ll admit - they are stuck using their bathtub to wash the dog. with a slippery tub and a dog just large enough to jump out, simply wetting daggoo down was a challenge. she grabs the soap, kneels against the tub so that she can squeeze some onto the dog. while mulder strains his muscles in order to hold the dog down, scully starts to scrub, the knees of her pants soaking through now that the entire bathroom is damp with bathwater.

“well, this isn’t so bad,” mulder says, then receives a death-glare from scully. “okay, maybe it’s a little messier than expected, but it’s not  _so_  bad.”

“what’s  _so bad_  is that you let him roll around in the mud.” scully gives him a look as she scruffs up daggoo’s fur, the soap suds turning an odd shade of brown.

“he’s a dog, scully, an animal,” mulder defends. “it’s his instinct to roll in all of the strange, oozing things he finds in the wild. in this case, it just happened to be mud. it rained for all of yesterday, after all.”

shaking her head, she knows she can’t win this argument, so instead, she splashes the water in the tub over daggoo and tries to get the soap off while mulder keeps a hold on the dog. somehow, she got some suds stuck in a wisp of hair that’s hanging out of her messy bun; her tee-shirt from a 1999 road race is soaked in patches, and her jeans are just a little too big to the point that she needs to keep pulling them up, her wet hands leaving little fingerprints behind each time. as daggoo starts to relax, mulder lets go of him and helps scully rinse the dog off; eventually, the water in the tub has gone muddy while daggoo looks as white and soft as the socks mulder’s wearing. 

“can you get me a towel?” scully asks mulder while she rubs daggoo behind the ears. 

“of course,” he says, leaning on the tub in order to stand up. taking one of the towels hanging on the bathroom’s rack, he pads back over to scully, sits down alongside her while she lifts the dog out of the tub.

“thanks,” she says after he sets the towel onto her crossed legs, lets her set daggoo down there as well.

wrapping the wet dog up in the towel, she tries her best not to get any wetter or muddier, but it’s no use. there are muddy paw-prints on the rug downstairs, and there’s not much they can do about it now. then, daggoo licks scully’s cheek as she dries him off, and when she laughs, mulder can’t possibly fret about those muddy prints. once she finishes drying him off, she takes daggoo off of her lap and motions for him to run free. racing away from the merciless tub, daggoo heads back downstairs, ready to leave a damp mark on mulder’s spot of the couch.

“see?” mulder says, wrapping one arm around so that he can pull her closer. “that wasn’t so bad.”

a smile on her lips, she says, “if you leave dishes in the kitchen sink again the next time we urgently need to wash the dog, i will kill you.”

“noted,” he says, then kisses her cheek. “now, how about a shower and some dry clothes?”

“how about you wash the dishes first?”

dramatically, he pouts, stands up so that he can head downstairs. in his peripheries, he can see her stand up as well, and halfway down the staircase, he hears he call down to him.

“mulder, how long have i had soap in my hair?”


	28. having lunch

she lets down her lunchbag with a huff, then collapses against her desk chair. toeing off her shoes, she closes her eyes and breathes, tries to calm her heart rate. it’s only noon - actually, it’s quarter to noon, but she doesn’t care about that - and her day is already too busy. to make matters worse, she only has a an arugula salad, some grilled chicken, hummus, and pita bread for lunch. though the hospital’s cafeteria has hershey bars, she feels too stressed to go get one, so the pita will have to suffice. 

sitting up, she unzips the bag - an insulated and patterned one they found at costco many years ago during a back-to-school sale, and nowadays, it’s starting to show its age - and feels around for her water bottle, unscrews its lid. as she takes a sip, she tries to remind herself that there have been plenty of busy days at this hospital, and each time she’s had a busy day, she’s managed to get through the day, and everything has turned out fine. of course, there were times when things  _hadn’t_  turned out fine, but those times had been out of her control, so she can’t chastise herself for them. setting the water down, she reaches back into the bag in search of the tupperware filled with arugula and that lemon dressing mulder loves to make. to her surprise, she can’t find the tupperware, so she sits up straighter, looks through the bag. 

the first thing she finds is a little sticky note,  _i love you!_  written on it in mulder’s handwriting. then, she finds a brownie he must’ve slipped into her bag when she hadn’t been looking. right beneath the brownie is her arugula salad.

 _screw it_ , she thinks as she opens up the saran wrap around the brownie. she’s having dessert first today.


	29. taking a pregnancy test

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this was the first of these that made me feel like i was a writer. looking back, it seems like the earliest time when i started trying to find a personal writing style.

“let me go in with you." 

"mulder, no,” she says, facing away from him as she goes to open her car door. “i don’t want you anywhere near security cameras." 

though he knows it likely won’t make a difference, he’s wearing concealing clothes anyway, a big pair of sunglasses and a cheap sweatshirt that could cover his face if necessary. with her hair rustled up and long, she looks different too, her skin grayer, her body too thin. despite their past months of hiding, they still haven’t found a way to discreetly buy groceries or to go into convenience stores without fear, so he always stays in the car, a newspaper up in front of his face. sometimes, he ends up reading an article about them in the process. 

"are you sure?” he asks, then reaches for her hand. 

she pulls her hand away, keeps it close to her chest. 

“i’m sure." 

then, she leaves quickly, heads toward the gas station quick-mart in front of them. as she walks away, she tries and fails to keep her gait confident; though she wants him to think she’s indifferent, the sheer possibility of this has tears stinging her eyes. the terrible beauty of a second chance makes her feel as though the world isn’t so bad anymore, as though they could live in peace together for the rest of their lives. though she knows she should feel empty from all that has been taken from her, the idea alone makes her feel whole. despite how she wishes she didn’t, she wants this so badly with him. 

searching in the rack of toiletries and drugs, she finds a clearblue with ease, then slaps it down on the cashier’s counter. as she passes the cashier a twenty, her heart sinks; a baby would be expensive and next to impossible to hide. they couldn’t take a baby on the run, but an abortion would be expensive and risky too. at that, she swallows hard. if she were to have an abortion, it would break her. 

the cashier bags the test for her, and predictably, she asks for the bathroom key, which he passes with a look of apology.  _sorry, honey, that you’re all alone taking a pregnancy test in a dusty gas station bathroom._  luckily, that bathroom allows for privacy that she hasn’t had in months, so once she goes in, she drops the bag, sits down on the stained toilet, and puts her head in her hands. 

she’s bad at crying alone, always has been. though she can feel tears in her eyes, has the heavy-faced feeling she always has whenever she’s about to cry, she can never let the tears fall when she’s alone. though she knows that crying right now would be cathartic, the right thing to do, she can’t muster the tears, won’t let herself fall apart. the world around her feels as though it’s spinning, yet she can’t even cry. out there in the car, mulder is all alone, she reminds herself; at the drop of a dime, he would be willing to join her in here, to let them face this together, but she can’t let their life now be jeopardized by her emotions, so she pulls the test out of the bag, breaks it out of the box. she skims the directions - anyone who’s ever seen a movie probably knows how a pregnancy test works, and plus, this isn’t her first time taking one - then forces herself through the test, regrets leaving her watch in the car. now, all she can do is watch the little screen until it determines whether or not she’s been given a second miracle. 

then, she closes her eyes, her fingers blanching around the test, and takes a deep breath. as she exhales, words she can’t control come out. 

"hail mary, full of grace, the lord is with thee,” she whispers to herself, her hands shaking. “blessed art though amongst women…" 

she continues the prayer without thinking, her mind numb; she could recite this in her sleep. as she loosens her grip on the test, she cannot understand what exactly she’s praying for, how exactly she would define a miracle right now. in the end, she realizes, she’s praying for them, for god to cherish mulder and her, for god to forgive them for whichever sins have led them to this place. though she chose this life - she chose this, without a doubt - she didn’t choose pain. she didn’t choose to fear. she didn’t choose to have forces out of their hands threaten to tear them apart and even kill them, so she prays that they’ll find peace, doesn’t care how or why they find it but cares that they find it nonetheless. 

then, she imagines peace, pictures a little house so far away from everyone and everything that could hurt them. she pictures him making her pancakes and coffee as soon as she wakes up. she pictures warm blankets and clean sheet day; she pictures him kissing her behind the knees as they curl up reading together. she pictures keeping a warm, lush garden in the summer and making pico de gallo with homegrown tomatoes. she pictures going for a long run and never fearing that she’s being chased. she pictures dancing with him on christmas in that little house, the world quieter and calmer than it is now. she pictures him, just him, the rest of the world a warm and steady blur.

taking another deep breath, she opens her eyes, reads off the words on the screen.

_not pregnant_

drifting, she throws the test away, flushes the toilet, washes her hands, and leaves, slapping the key down in front of the cashier as she goes. when she gets back into the car, mulder asks from behind his newspaper, "what happened?" 

when she looks over at him, he has a deep melancholy in his eyes, a sense that he can’t tell what he wants her response to be. funny, she thinks, for she had the same feeling only minutes ago. 

"nothing happened,” she says, buckling her seatbelt and backing out of their parking space. 

“do you want to talk about it?” he asks, folding up the paper. 

glancing toward him, she can tell that he wants to talk about it, but if she talks about it with him, then she’ll cry, and then, they’ll have to pull over and deal with all of their pent-up and messy emotions, and she doesn’t have time for emotions, let alone time to pull over. plus, all around them are cornfields, so seemingly desolate on the side of the road, so she doubts she’ll find a spot to park.

“no,” she says, unsure as to where she’s driving. there’s a route number facing left, so she turns that way. it’s not as though they have anywhere in particular to go. 

“is there anything i can do?” he asks. 

she takes a deep breath, and on her exhalation, she says, “find me a home." 

at that, he unfolds the paper again, pins his finger against an advert. 

"found one." 

"hold on,” she says, now willing to pull off onto the side of the road and park there, her passenger’s-side wheels ruining a couple of corn crops. he passes her the paper, lets her read the advert. 

 _for sale by owner_  
3BDR 2BA   
pay in full   
discretion required

she looks at the grainy picture above the advert, sees a white house with a wide porch. 

“it’s a bit unremarkable,” he comments, “but it’s a home." 

for the first time all day, she smiles.


	30. waking up

**anonymous asked: what happens when mulder tries to wake scully up? or vice versa**

_when mulder wakes scully up_

“scully.”

he nudges her, the mug of her morning tea warm in his hand.

“scully, wake up.”

groaning, she presses her face into her pillow, refuses to look up at him. her alarm went off fifteen minutes ago, but she refuses to budge. as he sits at the edge of the bed, he nudges her once more.

“scully, i’m all for overthrowing the higher-ups by showing up late,” he insists, “but you aren’t, and i hear traffic might be rough this morning.”

at that, she groans louder, pulls the comforter up over her shoulders. he pulls the comforter down. she pulls it back up. with a sigh, he figures that this morning is one of the rare ones in which scully waits until the last possible minute to get out of bed. the last time one of these mornings occurred, she left the house in a pajama top by accident and had to drive back to change. after living with her for years, he’s developed a way to cope with mornings like this, so he stands up, sets her tea down on their bureau, and comes back over to the bed. 

“scully, you need to get up,” he says with just a hint of glee; this is his last warning.

her voice muffled against her pillow, she moans, “ _no_.”

“well, i guess there’s only one thing i can do, then.”

then, she goes rigid as he rips the comforter off of her and slides his arms underneath her.

“mulder,  _no!_ ” she says, much more alert than before, but it’s too late; she’s already in his arms being carried bridal-style down the stairs. in the kitchen, he pulls a chair out with his foot, gingerly sets her down there. 

“see?” he says a little too happily. “that wasn’t so bad.”

he’ll take the death-glare for now.

* * *

_when scully wakes mulder up_

when he wakes, she’s curled up against his back, her arms wrapping around his stomach, her lips against his neck.

“good morning,” she whispers, then kisses his jaw.

“good morning,” he replies groggily.

as she settles in closer, he takes a contented breath; this is the best way to wake up. she peppers soft kisses down his neck and against his bare shoulders, then rubs her thumb over his hip. 

“are you going to church today?” he asks quietly.

“no,” she says, “not this week.”

“oh.”

though he rarely goes with her to church, he was hoping to go with her this week, if only because it had been a long time since he last accompanied her. that thought quickly fades as she sighs against him, asks, “what should we have for breakfast? i’m starving.”

“pancakes.”

“you always want pancakes.”

“waffles?”

“i don’t feel like finding the iron.”

“it’s in the cabinet one over from the sink.”

“i still don’t feel like it.”

then, he pauses, lets a little smile come to his lips. trying to be more alert, he sniffs around, says, “you already made something, didn’t you.”

“it’s cinnamon buns, they smell amazing, and they’ve got two more minutes in the oven, and i’m hungry,” she insists while he laughs to himself, “so get up already!”

as she stands and starts to head downstairs, he smirks to himself. yeah, this is definitely the best way to wake up.


	31. running together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this while in a hotel room in boston the day before bcc, at which i met gillian and got to speak for her for a lovely few moments.

**anonymous asked: how about if they try running together? are they adorably frustrated with the height difference?**

“four miles?” he scoffs. “that’s _nothing_ , scully. of course i can handle it.”

“are you sure?” she asks as she laces up her sneakers. though she swears by brooks, he’s more of a new balance man himself. “you haven’t gone out for a run in a while, and it’s nearly eighty degrees, mulder.”

though she invests in nice running clothes - most of them are incredibly expensive and from that one brand, something about lemons - he’s all about the cotton tee shirt and basketball shorts. however, this specific pair of basketball shorts has seen better days, probably ones sometime around 1995 or 1996. these shorts don’t stretch much anymore and have quite a bit of trouble staying up; she giggles under her breath whenever he has to pull them up.

“i can handle it,” he insists, looking out at the trail beyond them. 

as she’s said many a time, she hates running near their home. first of all, the driveway is so long that a good portion of any of her runs is spend just in the driveway, and second, the roads around them are unpaved, rocky, and dull; unless she were to run twenty miles, she would never find something interesting to look at on a run near home. however, she begrudgingly runs around there anyway on some mornings before work, but on weekends, she insists on driving out to a long rail trail half an hour from their home. the world feels soft, cool, and earthy around here, much unlike her runs near home.

“okay,” she says as she picks her foot up, stretches her troublesome quadricep one last time. “do you want to match pace or just meet up at the end?”

she hates running alongside other people, hopes they can go at their own paces even though she asks anyway.

“meet up at the end,” he says.

“okay.”

in seconds, he sets off, his pace fast, his arms rather low in comparison to hers. she’s all about the art of the easy run, saves speed workouts for when she’s particularly angry or frustrated, but he sprints every time. soon enough, he turns a corner on the lush trail, and then, he’s out of sight, so she laughs to herself, knowing just what will happen by the end of the first mile. 

after spending so much time on naval bases or in georgetown, she relishes in any chance she has to be in places outdoors where everything is quiet, lush, and soft. because it’s saturday morning, almost no one else is on the trail - she waves when a runner going the opposite way passes by, but beyond that, there’s no need for interaction - so she can let her mind drift. though she hates running on principle, despises sweating and wheezing and feeling her muscles ache, she loves how running relaxes her. it’s like hypnosis, she figures, only she’s in control the whole time. running lets her mind cope with whatever has been consuming her thoughts in a way that can never hurt her, and afterward, post-run endorphins make her feel far more hopeful than she ever could without a run. though she’s fond of a glass of wine at night or some yoga in order to clear her head, she’s found that nothing clears her head quite like a run does.

when she reaches the one-mile marker, mulder is there, his hands bracing against his thighs, his breath heavy. she smirks to herself; he always burns out after that first mile. 

“having fun?” she asks as she slows down next to him.

“totally,” he says, panting.

“how do the next three miles sound now?”

at that, he groans, so she laughs.

“come on,” she says. “we can take them easy and walk if you want.”

“yeah, maybe that’s a good idea,” he says.

then, they start running again, both of their paces much slower than before; she doesn’t usually like running alongside other people, but for right now, she’ll make an exception.


	32. favorite ways to kiss each other

**anonymous asked: their favorite ways to kiss each other**

as always, the traffic to the airport is heavy and thick; he’s dead-stopped around a construction site, his fingers drumming against the steering wheel of his - well,  _her_  - car, his mind restless. he checks his watch, knows that he left early to begin with and that he has plenty of time before her plane lands, but he’s still anxious to get to the airport. though he knows he’ll be waiting alone at the arrivals for a while, he would much rather be there, standing on tiptoe while crowds pass by in hope that he can see the bright red of her hair in the crowd, than sitting in traffic alone.

quickly, he turns on the radio, taps the wheel some more, shakes his left foot. nowadays, he doesn’t much like driving, so the driver’s side of her car is so tailored to her that sitting in it feels uncomfortable and foreign for him. he has to inflate the lumbar support himself - it hits her back too low and makes her uncomfortable, so she always turns it off - and slide the seat far back so that he can even sit down. then, there’s the multimedia player, or whatever she calls it; she can plug her phone in and use the car’s speakers to both play music and charge her phone, but he hasn’t a clue as to how that works. there’s a gps in there somewhere too. most of all, he hates that he hasn’t a clue as to how to turn the back wiper-blades off, so they’ve been on ever since she left.

he turns the radio off, leans back, and closes his eyes in annoyance. then, a horn behind him blares, so he looks up, sees that the traffic is finally moving. stepping on the gas pedal just a little bit harder than he optimally should, he heads forward, so close to the airport. as he follows the signs for the arrivals gate, he smiles as he thinks of how lovely it’ll be to see her. she’s been in california for two weeks attending and speaking at medical conferences, and though they both managed to figure out skype, he still felt raw and oddly alone without her physically near him. though he wasn’t sad, he felt her absence in strange ways. sometimes, he would be at the library and see a book she would like but not be able to borrow that book because she wasn’t home, or he would try a new takeout chinese dish and want to get her opinion on whether or not it was good enough to order again. though he knew he would miss the big parts of living with her, he hadn’t expected the little parts to feel so absent.

parking in short-term, he takes a ticket, locks the car, heads toward the arrivals. he checks his phone, and reading a text from her, he sees that she’s just touched down, that it should be half an hour or so until she gets out of the airport. finding a bench, he sits down, opens up pokemon go in a futile attempt to pass the time. there’s a dratini somewhere. he huffs; of course the airport has good pokemon.

when he next checks his watch, it’s been twenty minutes, so he puts his phone away, takes a deep breath. if she were there, she would tell him to be more patient. as a large group of people exits the airport, he stands up quickly, looks out over there heads in hope of finding her, and surely enough, she’s toward the back, her - well,  _his_  - little suitcase in tow. her nose is sunburnt, but the rest of her skin looks oddly tan, her freckles in full sunny bloom. when she sees him, she smiles, starts walking just a little bit quicker toward him.

“hey,” he manages as she meets him at the bench; he takes her suitcase, moves it away from them, and softly pulls her closer. “i missed you.”

standing on tiptoe, she kisses him more chastely than he would expect her to, then runs her palm down his arm, takes his hand.

“i missed you too.”

tugging the suitcase along, he leads her back to where he parked her car, a soft silence between them. her clothes hold the combined aroma of recycled air and herself. though he wants to ask how she got so much sun, he refrains for the moment. he would much rather hear about her trip while they’re stuck in traffic than while they’re walking hand-in-hand through a parking lot. when they get to her car, he opens the back, hoists her suitcase in, and goes around to the passenger’s side so he can open the door for her. at that, she gives him a look, then lets it fade to a soft, warm smile. he remembers that smile, her first of the year 2000, so long ago yet still so very memorable. then again, he doubts he’ll ever forget any of her smiles.

then, she leans her palms against his chest, kisses him once more, this kiss deeper and warmer than the first. he closes his eyes, brings his hand to the small of her back; she feels like a deep, cleansing breath after a long period of anxiousness, like slipping into bed after a strenuous day. she feels like herself.

she pulls away, whispers  _thank you_  as she slips into the passenger’s seat; he closes her door, walks around to the driver’s side. he sits down, buckles his seatbelt, and turns the key in the ignition before asking, “so, what happened to your nose?”


	33. showering

“did you pencil in soap on the shopping list?" 

"yeah, it’s there." 

"good,” she says, nodding, “because i’m getting sick of this tiny bar." 

she’s right; the white bar is minuscule and thready in her hand as she runs it across her shoulders. with her hair slicked down her back, she looks so bare, so soft. though he loves seeing her in makeup or with dry hair and a clean face, there’s something exquisite about sharing a shower with her, about seeing her as just scully and not  _scully, the doctor_  or  _scully, his partner_. plus, she’s cute naked. that’s always a plus. 

"scully?” he asks as he squeezes shampoo into his hand, brings it into his hair.

humming a response, she rinses off, looks to him. 

“when han solo supposedly died, we never saw the lightsaber go through his body,” mulder says. “technically speaking, it could’ve all been a hoax. did we actually watch him die, or does abrams want us to think that we watched him die?" 

"he fell hundreds of feet, mulder,” she insists as he rinses his hair; she takes her razor, steps out of the water so that she can shave her underarms. it’s winter, so she’s stopped bothering with her legs. “regardless of whether or not the lightsaber tore through him, he’d still be dead from the fall." 

"would he?” mulder counters as he picks up the tiny bar of soap. “we never saw him hit the ground, wherever that ground was." 

"i’m just saying that there’s a high probability that he’s dead, even if there is a possibility that he isn’t,” she says, shrugging. then, she eyes her shampoo, asks, “would you mind-" 

"not at all,” he says. at this point, she doesn’t even need to ask. 

as she turns away from him, wets her hair, he squirts her shampoo into his palm, reaches down to run his fingers through her hair. she hates washing her hair, but he loves it, loves the way her shoulders relax as he does it. though it’s terribly early - eight in the morning, to be precise - he’s nonetheless thankful that her alarm woke him, for it’s been a while since they last showered together, and he missed it. due to the hospital’s busy nature around the holiday season, she’s been working extra hours at odd times, so they’ve been forced to change their cozy routine. unfortunately, they have yet to put up a christmas tree, and if there is any part of the year that he wants to be most special for her, it’s christmas. he had hand-embroidered stockings made years ago, one for each of them, and he found a tree-skirt with beads and soft velvet fabrics sewn together; their trees are always covered top-to-bottom in ornaments, some heirlooms from the scully family and others bought to commemorate certain parts of their lives. his favorite ornament is the santa claus wearing a knicks tee shirt; hers is the apollo space shuttle that he gave her three years after they started working together. 

and for christmas, he works hard, makes a day out of going out and cutting down a tree. he loves the way her laughter sounds among the scent of wintery firs; when they latch the tree to the top of the car, she can never reach high enough to help tie it down, but she always saws it down herself. on christmas eve, they bake cookies together, a classic chocolate chip and her sister’s recipe for ginger-molasses; as though they’re leaving them for santa, they set cookies and milk and maybe a little wine out in the living room, and they watch whichever christmas movies they can find, just the two of them in their warm, cozy home, the only lights around them being the white lights on the tree. though he loves each tradition around the holidays, his favorite is putting on frank sinatra’s christmas record and dancing around the living room with her, both of them wine-drunk and warm and smiling. but it’s been a hard season, so they have yet to get a tree, but he wants to get one. he misses her even though she’s so close. 

“scully?” he asks, rinsing her hair and covering her forehead so no suds fall into her eyes. 

“if you want to argue more about han solo, wait until after i’ve had some caffeine." 

"when’s your next day off?" 

she pauses, figures out, "you want to get a tree." 

"i’d love to get a tree,” he says, starting to condition her hair. 

“i can’t take tomorrow off, but the day after should be free,” she confirms. “i’m sorry it’s so late this year." 

"it’s okay,” he says honestly. “i just miss you.”

she takes a deep breath, sighs quietly.

“i miss you too.”

“if we head out early in the morning, we should be able to finish trimming by mid-afternoon,” he says, starting to rinse the conditioner out of her hair. “the  _christmas vacation_  tape must be around here somewhere, so we can watch that afterward. then, we can-”

before he can elaborate, she turns to face him and eases her way into his arms, her cheek flush with his chest; smiling softly, he pulls her in closer, wraps her up against him. for a moment, he closes his eyes, rubs his hand against the small of her back. 

“so,” he asks quietly, “do you think leia will use the force in the next movie?”

at that, she gives him a look, turns the water off, and starts to head out of the shower.


	34. without saying anything at all

**anonymous asked: saying i love you without saying anything at all**

calling today a day from hell would be an understatement, and now, she’s stuck in stopped bumper-to-bumper traffic on the highway, her eyes closing in annoyance that an accident just had to occur after her bad day at work. thankfully, the guy ahead of her lets his brake-lights off; they’re finally moving. she sighs in thankfulness, but nonetheless, she knows it’s going to be a long drive home.

her purse is on the passenger’s seat, so she figures that reaching into it and taking her phone out so that she can call mulder is a good idea; she could dial his number in her sleep, so she barely has to look at the screen as she starts to make the call.

“hello?”

“mulder, it’s me.”

“hey!” he says, characteristically exuberant. “are you still at the hospital? what’s keeping you so late?”

“i’m stuck in traffic,” she explains. “there was an accident on the highway. i won’t be home for a while.”

“at least you don’t have to work late,” he offers, trying to lighten her frustrated mood.

“yeah,” she supplies, but she wrinkles her face in confusion, unsure as to why he’s so upbeat. after all, this is just another wednesday of another week; this isn’t an exciting day in the least.

“how long do you think it’ll be?” he asks as she slams the breaks; the guy ahead of her apparently doesn’t know how to drive, or so she says to herself.

she sighs. “an hour, maybe more.”

“i can keep you company if you want,” he adds. “over the phone, that is.”

“no, it’s alright,” she says. “i think i’ll just turn the radio on.”

“okay,” he says. “drive safely.”

“i will.”

after he hangs up the phone, she places her cell back in her purse and prepares for the long haul. by the time she reaches their driveway, she feels aches and pains in her soles, her feet protesting as she climbs out of her car and opens up the gate to their driveway. once she gets around the gate and closes it again, she wants to slam her foot on the gas pedal and just be home already, but she keeps her pace slow instead. parking in front of the house - they really ought to build a garage soon - she takes a deep breath, saves a moment for herself; it’s been a long day, so she hopes mulder won’t mind if she wants to spend the rest of the evening curled up on the couch, her book in her hands.

taking her purse off of the passenger’s seat, she walks up the deck’s steps and opens the front door; immediately, she can smell warm, melting cheese and tomato sauce, and there are candles, the expensive handmade ones that he bought her for her birthday, lit and sitting on the kitchen table, two place-settings all made up, the wine-glasses empty but complemented by an uncorked bottle of bordeaux. she looks over to find mulder crouching by the oven while he pulls out a toasty baking dish. as he stands up, he smiles over at her, sets the dish down on top of the stove.

“hey,” he says as he pulls off his oven mitts and walks over toward her. “i made stuffed shells. and a salad, because i knew you would want one. and tiramisu.”

she lets him take her purse off of her shoulder; then, she leaves her shoes in the tray by the door, lets him pull her jacket off of her shoulders. before he can go back to the baked shells, she reaches out for him, wraps her arms around his waist, and pulls him closer; he folds around her, tucks her head beneath his chin. closing her eyes, she breathes there for a moment, soaking in his warmth and the delicious scents surrounding them. as she lets go, he rubs her shoulder, then heads back into the kitchen.

“i forgot garlic bread, though,” he adds. “we’re out of french bread anyway. and garlic, for that matter.”

as she sits down at the kitchen table and pours herself a glass of wine, she doesn’t mind.


	35. at the end of the day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i very distinctly remember writing this while in a too-hot cafe on campus and trying not to look at the multivariable calculus homework that i was currently neglecting.

“scully?” he calls as he shuts the from door behind himself, the cold, dark nights of september making him shiver.

usually, he takes an uber to his book club at the local library, but tonight, she was home early enough that he could take her car instead. though they didn’t share dinner together, he knows there are leftovers from her dinner left for him in the fridge, and despite his stomach’s protests, he wants to find her and say hello before he heats his meal up.

with the newest debbie macomber book in his hands - his book club has a type - he walks into his office, doesn’t find her there. strange, he thinks, for she sometimes goes there after work in hope of looking over a few extra files before bed. finally, she has her own desk, one flush against his and utterly spotless in comparison to his, complete with a nameplate. leaving the office, he heads upstairs, wonders if she’s in the shower.

walking into the bedroom, he calls once more, “scully?”

then, he hushes, for she’s curled up on his side of the bed, daggoo asleep at her feet, her hair askew across his pillow. one of his shirts peeks out from underneath the comforter; she’s out cold, her bedside lamp still on, her book abandoned on her chest. softly, he smiles, then takes her book, bookmarks her current page, and leaves it on her bedside-table. turning the light off, he leans down to gingerly kiss her forehead, then heads out of the bedroom.

in the fridge, there’s leftover penne à la vodka, but that doesn’t warm his heart nearly as much as watching her sleep in his shirt does.


	36. beneath the stars

“we should install a skylight." 

"we can’t install a skylight." 

"why not?" 

"because above us is the attic, not the roof. all we would get is a view of what we have stored up there." 

he huffs, his breath warm against her bare breast. as he curls up next to her in bed, she cards her fingers through his hair, longer and scruffier than it usually is. though the nights are just starting to grow cold as autumn returns, the house is warm in a familiar, comfortable way; the comforter on their bed is at her waist, and as they lay together in the dark, she takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly and blissfully. she loves nights like this, ones spend close to him in the dark quiet of a rural night; evenings like this feel like a best kept secret, a faded polaroid kind of moment. 

"why would you want a skylight in here anyway?” she asks, her hand soft against his temple. 

he reaches across the plane of her bare stomach, takes her hip in his hand, pulls her closer to him. 

“because,” he explains, “the only thing that could make this moment better would be seeing the stars right above us." 

softly, she smiles to herself, kisses his scalp. 

"then let’s go look at the stars." 

at that, he leans up and glances toward her, a flummoxed look upon his face. crawling out of bed - and out of his grasp - she takes a throw-blanket from within the bedroom’s chest-of-drawers and wraps it around herself, the thought of clothing abhorrent at this hour. slowly, he follows, taking the comforter off of the bed and wrapping it around his body. he follows her downstairs and out onto the porch, where she steps barefoot into the crisp night air, stopping only to sit down on the porch-steps. as he sits down alongside her, he watches as she stares up at the sky, her eyes filled with sleepy contentment. she’s beautiful, her hair in snarls and her body covered only by the periwinkle throw.

before she can start to shiver - she’s always cold - he wraps the comforter around them both, his arm resting against her back. then, he looks up at the sky, so full of light that it takes his breath away every time. though moving into this reclusive house seemed dire at first, the uninterrupted night sky made up for any isolation they felt; above them are stars beyond stars, so many that he couldn’t count them if he tried, the sky almost too bright to seem real. he can’t identify many constellations, for the sky is too full of stars for his aging eyes to finely-tune to the groups. however, he can see the seven sisters clearly, the little smudge off to their left; he reaches up to point them out, and as he does so, she nods, knows which ones he’s pointing out. 

"whenever i travel for work,” she says quietly, as though speaking too loudly will suddenly bring daylight and force them back inside to deal with the day, “i always look for the seven sisters, but the sky’s never dark enough for me to see them." 

"all the more incentive to come home,” he says, smiling. 

“and there’s the big dipper,” she says, pointing up to the sky. 

“scully, anyone can spot the big dipper." 

"and there’s orion’s belt…." 

"now you’re just showing off." 

she shakes her head, faces him with a warm smile, and in his mind, he thinks of each other time when she’s given him such a smile, like when he brought her cupcakes for lunch at work or when he did the dishes without telling her first or whenever he walks up behind her, wraps his arms around her, and kisses her cheek. in only seconds, those memories come to the front of his mind, but then, they’re gone, leaving only the smiling scully in front of him in their wake. his head feels empty in the most relaxed of ways, and as he reaches out and pulls her into his arms, she laughs quietly, making him relax more. 

"i love you,” he whispers to her. 

she nuzzles against his neck, her body flush against his. 

“maybe we _should_  get a skylight,” she considers.


	37. if you agree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this goes out of the primary theme of this collection / what my blog was, but i want to make sure it's backed up anyway, so i'll be including it here.

[spookyfbi](http://spookyfbi.tumblr.com/post/150580269407):

> _Scully waking up in the middle of the night to find Mulder asleep on the couch with William in his arms reblog if u agree_

She wakes with a start, surprised to find that her bedside lamp is still on, her reading glasses askew on her face. Though it was early in the evening when she came to bed, the book she was currently reading drawing her back into its story, she didn’t expect to fall asleep. Glancing over, she can see that Mulder, to her surprise, isn’t in bed even at the now-late hour. Taking off her glasses and setting them on her bedside-table, she crawls out of bed, wonders where he could be.

By now, she would’ve expected him to come up and climb into bed, the three of them needing to wake up early for church tomorrow. Though they’ve missed the last few services - Mulder especially, which she respects even though Will’s started to ask questions about his father’s absence - her mother wants to take the three of them out to breakfast afterward, so they’re going, teeth bared if necessary. She heads downstairs, where a living room lamp casts the couch in a warm glow; she can see Mulder sitting there, his hair unkempt and his head tilted lazily down.

“Mulder?” she calls quietly, hoping not to wake Will from where he’s sleeping upstairs. 

She pads across the living room, then stops quickly, for Will isn’t upstairs; he’s asleep in Mulder’s arms on the couch, her tattered copy of  _The Story of Ferdinand_  resting on his lap. Clad in the spaceship pajamas Mulder insisted they buy Will for their son’s recent sixth birthday - William’s favorite pair, she knows - their son has his arms wrapped around Dad’s stomach, his head resting against Mulder’s chest. In one arm, Mulder rests the book, and in the other, he holds William close. Taking a deep breath, she can feel her heart flutter, the scene all too familiar and yet somehow still shockingly beautiful. Though she can’t count the number of times the two of them have fallen asleep while reading a story, she still feels that same flutter each time she plays the  _Bedtime Police_ , scooping them both up and insisting that sleeping on the couch isn’t good for their backs. For a moment, she simply stands there, listens to the quiet and heavy sounds of her boys’ breathing; then, she leans down and nudges Mulder’s shoulder.

“Mulder,” she repeats in a whisper, trying her best not to disturb Will. “Mulder, wake up.”

Groggily, he opens his eyes, looks up at her with confusion.

“What time is it?” he asks, his words sleepily slurring.

“Around midnight,” she says. “He ought to be in bed.”

“Sorry,” Mulder says, passing her the book while trying not to jolt Will. “We were reading and must’ve lost track of time.”

“It’s okay.” She takes the red and fading book in her hands, runs her fingers across the little binding; in the front, there’s still some of her childish handwriting claiming  _property of Dana and not Bill_. “I just don’t want you two to be cranky in the morning.”

“Us? Cranky?” Softly, he grips onto Will, stands up slowly in hope that their son will stay asleep in his arms. “When have we ever been cranky in the morning?”

At that, she gives him a look, but the smile he returns makes her soften. 

“He read the first two pages all by himself,” Mulder beams, walking toward the stairs while Will sleeps against his chest; she follows him closely, trying to keep her footsteps quiet. 

“Really?” she asks with a soft smile. 

“Really,” Mulder says. “After that, he said he was tired and wanted me to finish it. I guess he wasn’t kidding.”

At the top of the stairs, they head into Will’s bedroom, the walls painted a soft, cool blue and accented with glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, put up after they discovered Will’s fear of the dark. Currently, handmade rockets litter the top of his dresser, some as simple as plastic bottles and some so intricate that Scully hasn’t a clue as to how Mulder and Will could’ve built them. Her favorite part of Will’s room is the bookshelf that Mulder built at her insistence when Will was three, along with the wide and cozy armchair next to it; all of her childhood books line those shelves along with some newer releases, and sometimes, after Will comes home from school, he’ll act restless and insist that all he wants to do is sit down in that chair and read a book with Momma. Each time that’s happened, reading with him has been the best part of her day.

In the dark, Mulder rests their son in bed while she gingerly shelves  _Ferdinand_. As Mulder pulls the covers over William, he leans down to kiss his son’s forehead, then walks over to the doorway, waiting for her. She follows him out of their son’s room, quietly closes the door behind them. 

Back in their own bedroom, she climbs into bed, asks, “Your church clothes are clean, aren’t they?”

“Clean and pressed,” he confirms as he pulls the covers over himself, as she turns off her bedside lamp. “I’m more prepared than I was last time.”

At that, she smiles, remembering how Will kept tinkering with the wrinkles of Dad’s shirt at the last mass they attended. She leans onto her side, starts to close her eyes when he snakes an arm around her stomach, leans forward so that he can kiss her neck.

“Goodnight, Scully,” he says softly.

“Goodnight, Mulder,” she returns. 

As usual, she falls asleep happy.


	38. getting drunk

he should’ve seen this coming when he read  _open bar_  on the wedding invitation. 

though he knows she’s on her third glass of wine - he’s picked all of them up for her, after all - he hasn’t kept track of how many drinks he’s had, so he tries to quantify the buzzing in his blood, places himself somewhere around four or five beers though he hasn’t had any beer tonight. one of scully’s coworkers invited her to his wedding, so she and mulder decided to attend if only out of social obligation; he can’t remember if they’ve ever gone to a wedding together, thinks this is their first. despite the festivities around them in the ballroom of this hotel, neither of them wants to join in on the reception’s fun. though scully found and said hello to other coworkers of hers and the groom’s, she and mulder can’t find familiarity in the crowd. in the end, it’s just the two of them sitting at their assigned seats while most everyone else dances to some newfangled pop tune. 

“want to get out of here?” she asks, swishing wine around her glass in mock-aeration and spilling a little onto the tablecloth in front of her. 

she’s wearing a black sleeveless dress that she keeps for occasions like this, times when she needs to dress formally but can’t be bothered to purchase something expensive and refined enough for so irrelevant an event; freshwater pearls he gave her for their anniversary last year rest on her neck, the matching earrings hidden by her red hair, longer now and falling just past her shoulders. as she looks at him, her bright eyes droopy and her mouth slightly open, she holds an air of effortless beauty, as though any dishevelment will only make her more beautiful. underneath the table, she’s already kicked off her heels. 

“leave a party early?” he says dramatically. “why would  _i_  want to do that?”

when she rolls her eyes, she holds a drunken smile on her lips, the laughter lines around her mouth framing the grin. as soon as he realizes that he wants to preserve that image of her forever by taking her picture, she changes the image by taking a long sip of wine. his memory will need to suffice. 

“i want to go  _home,_ ” she says with emphasis. “i’m tired." 

"and drunk,” he points out. 

“and drunk!” she laughs just a beat longer than he would expect her to. 

normally, they don’t drink often, maybe once or twice a week if that often, but when they get drunk, they go all-in. after they reach a certain point, he starts to sing, and to his contentment, she starts to dance. though he was hoping on a dance with her tonight, he takes his phone out of his pocket and calls for an uber anyway. come to think of it, he’s tired too. 

“should we give the bride and groom our congratulations before we leave?” he asks. 

“ _no,_ ” she emphasizes. “they’ll be divorced in two years." 

"really?” he asks. 

“i bet you a dollar that they will be." 

"only a dollar?” he asks incredulously. “that makes you sound unsure, scully." 

” _fine._ “ she messily swirls the wine once more, dripping a little onto her cleanly-shaven leg. ” _two_  dollars.“ 

"two whole dollars?” he asks, flabbergasted and laughing. “now, that’s a bet i have to take." 

"we need to shake on it,” she insists, then holds out her left hand; snaking his left around to meet hers, he gives a hearty shake. 

their car is here, so he motions for them to leave; she holds up a finger so that he’s forced to wait, then downs the rest of the wine in a hearty chug. slipping back into her shoes, she starts to head out of the reception, leaving her little clutch behind; he picks it up, then follows her closely, making sure she doesn’t forget anything else. there are reasons as to why they infrequently get drunk, scully’s alcohol-related forgetfulness being one of them. 

“scully?” he asks as they walk out into the crisp night air, goosebumps forming on her bare arms; as he guides her to the car, he can feel her start to shiver. she hums a response as she climbs into the car, glances back at him while he climbs in as well. 

“have we ever been to a wedding together?" 

 “yeah,” she says as though that answer is obvious. 

“when?" 

"tonight." 

"i meant before tonight." 

she leans back against the upholstery, squints as she thinks.  

"maybe,” she shrugs. “i don’t think so." 

"huh." 

then, she moves closer to him in the car so that their hips are flush against each other, leans her head onto his shoulder. as he expected, she kicks off her shoes once more. 

"we should get married,” she says as though that’s the lightest suggestion in the world. he expects her to follow the statement with  _and we should order domino’s when we get home because i have such a craving for it right now, and those reception entrees were as tiny as could be._

he hums a response, unsure what to do with such a statement. “why?” he asks. 

“well,” she begins, sticking her hands out as though motioning with them will help emphasize her reasoning, “if that guy can go and get married for no reason, we might as well do it. we’ve been together longer than he and his sweetie ever will be.  _c'est la vie!_  it’s our legal right, mulder, our legal right, and we ought to exercise it." 

"okay,” he says, drunk enough to indulge the fantasy. “let’s get married next weekend, then." 

"we can’t." 

"why not?" 

"i have a dentist appointment." 

"bummer." 

then, she laughs at the absurdity of it against his shoulder, the laugh a wholehearted one of hers that he hasn’t heard in ages, and for the moment, he lets himself mourn that such a frivolous plan fell through. as she quiets against his shoulder, he snakes an arm around her back, pulls her in closer to him. as she closes her eyes, he takes a deep breath, the scent of wine on her skin. 

"hey, scully?” he whispers.

she hums sleepily against his shoulder. 

with a dramatic accent, he asks, “will you marry me?" 

she sighs against him.  

"not right now,” she says. “maybe in the morning." 

though he didn’t get his dance tonight, this is so much better.


	39. when it rains

she hasn’t slept through the night in days, waking up every few hours and groggily turning onto her other side each time, a mild headache burrowing between her brows all the while. though there’s a bottle of melatonin on her nightstand, those pills usually leave her feeling foggy the next day, so when she wakes, she turns onto her back, looks up above her. the ceiling-fan is off, the windows shut; their bedroom holds the eerie quiet of the country, a combination of pure, uncharged silence and the humming of floras and faunas. though she’ll never be kept awake by honking car-horns and streetlights out here, the spring peepers and cicadas make her reach for earplugs.

but tonight is quiet, a tinny hum coming from the roof; beyond the muffled sounds of the forest beyond the house, her world is silent. she turns her head toward him in bed, and as he faces away from her, fast asleep on his side, she takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. she’ll fall back to sleep eventually, she knows, but for now, she slowly crawls out of bed, tries not to wake him in the process.

she pads downstairs softly, the kitchen and living room colder than their bedroom was. wrapping her arms around herself, she heads to the front door, opens it slowly and softly smiles at the absurdity of the unlocked door. though there were once days when her doors were blocked up with more locks and security measures than she could count, they don’t bother to lock their front door nowadays. her car keys are even sitting on the dashboard of her car, accessible to anyone. she can’t remember if she closed the driveway’s gate or not when she came home.

as she walks onto the porch, she sees puddles starting to form in the matted-down long grass ahead of her; it’s raining, not pouring but still coming down heavily. that’s the sound that was coming from the roof, she thinks as she sits down in one of the deck-chairs. closing her eyes, she breathes in the earthy scent of it all, the air feeling clean and soft. at the hospital, the scents of recycled air and cleaning agents get to her sometimes, leaving her desperate for the salvation that this home offers. a workday near the city can break her nowadays; she’s glad that they found home in a place that feels like home, a place that centers them both. though she figures she could find home anywhere with him, she knows intrinsically that this place is right, that this is where they’re meant to be. 

then, the winds pick up, so she heads inside, fears getting wet as a downpour picks up. she leaves the door unlocked, heads upstairs quickly, crawls back underneath the comforter. as she looks over at her bedside clock, she sees that it’s only one in the morning, that she still has plenty of time to sleep, so she smiles softly, nestles back into bed. 

to her disdain, mulder stirs, then cranes his neck back to look at her.

“everything okay?” he asks quietly, his voice gruff and gravelly. 

“yeah,” she says softly, “just fine.”

then, he turns away from her once more, closes his eyes again, and because he’s awake anyway, she leans up onto her side, wraps an arm around his stomach, brings her forehead to the nape of his neck. he smells like himself, something she wishes she could replicate but is glad she cannot. pressing a kiss to the back of his neck, she squeezes him closer for just one moment, then lets go, moves back over onto her pillow.

with rain outside, with him next to her in bed, and with many more hours left for her to sleep, she doesn’t mind being awake at such an hour.


	40. ordering chinese takeout

**Anonymous said: Hi! I don't know if you want to do this prompt but MSR In a power outage. It just happened to me and for some reason I thought of your blog lol**

“how is it that chinese restaurants always have power when we don’t?” he asks as she sets their  _monopoly_  box on the kitchen table, nearly knocking over the container of shrimp fried rice in the process. 

“must be fate,” she deadpans as she pulls the board out of the box, sets up the cash one the kitchen table; she’s memorized their starting amounts, always acts as banker when they play. 

“and tonight,” he says as he swirls his chopsticks around in his container of pork lo mein, picking up noodles as he goes, “our fate is to learn the power of sodium, americanized international cuisine, and, well, power itself.”

she gives him a look, then sits down alongside him at the kitchen table. though she’s already started on the moo goo gai pan and wonton soup, they have yet to touch the general tso’s chicken or the spring rolls. most likely, they bought too much food, but he’s more than prepared to prove that they can eat it all, especially if that means feeling warm, groggy, and stuffed on the couch together while the storm passes.

in the candlelit house, they’re safe from the rain, lightning, wind, and darkness outside, all of which put the county in some mild state of emergency - he didn’t understand the definition of it when it was announced, and neither did she - and without much light, and without power, their first option is always to play  _monopoly_  even though their  _monopoly_  games are hardly ever finished. without streetlights or a full moon, the night is deeply dark out here, the house shaking with every gust of wind; when the thunder comes, he can see her jump just a little bit, as though she doesn’t want him to see that it frightens her from time to time.

“i want to be the hat,” he says as she passes him his share of starting money.

“but you usually play as the car,” she says with surprise.

he shrugs, picks up more noodles.

“i’m just trying to keep you guessing,” he offers.

she shakes her head with a soft smile as she sets the top hat piece and the dog piece at the starting point of the board. then, she picks up her moo goo gai pan once more, picks up some chicken with her fork.

“scully, why no chopsticks?” he asks, having not noticed that before.

she gives him a look, says, “you know how bad i am with chopsticks.”

“actually, i can’t seem to remember,” he says dramatically, lying through his teeth. 

then, he picks up noodles on his chopsticks, carries them over toward her. leaning forward, he holds his chopsticks in front of her mouth, to which she closes her eyes in annoyance and says, “mulder, stop.”

“they’re noodles,” he says.

“i know that.”

“you love noodles.”

“i wouldn’t say that i  _love_  them.”

“fine. you  _like_  noodles.”

“and i don’t want noodles right now.”

“c’mon, scully,” he says, adding drama to his voice. “where’s your sense of adventure?”

she gives him a look, then opens her mouth, begrudgingly lets him feed her. as she chews, he says, “see? that wasn’t so bad.”

then, she picks up the dice, rolls once, a six. he takes the dice, rolls a nine.

“you aren’t getting park place this time,” she challenges. 

“are you willing to bet your dinner on that?”

the look she gives him back is mischievous, so he smiles. this game isn’t going to last long.


	41. dc cherry blossoms

**Anonymous said: DC Cherry Blossoms**

it’s like christmas, she swears, when they go to see the blossoms every year.

first, they wake up at five in the morning, forego a shower, and head out of the house with fervent and unbounded energy. they stop for breakfast at aunt mae’s diner, open twenty-four hours and right along their route into the city; by six, they’re finding a place to park near the tidal basin, and before the sun rises, they’re sitting on a specific bench they’ve sat on during many past festivals, one that lets them watch the sun rise behind the jefferson memorial while the washington monument looms in the distance. now, they’re on that very bench, the sun just starting to rise as he takes her gloved hand in his. she’s wearing the tan leather ones he bought her after she lost her old driving pair in the parking lot at whole foods, managed to find only one of that old pair a snowstorm or two later, the glove now torn and tire-printed straight down its middle. so far, she’s hard more luck with the new ones, hasn’t lost them yet, but he misses the little hole on the palm of her old ones, how it felt to feel her warm skin peeking through whenever they held hands while she wore them.

though the morning is chilly, he figures they’ll shed their coats by midday, that the sun will bring them and the rest of the city out of a wintery haze. he loves winter, loves the closeness it brings between the two of them, but to him, there’s something so optimistic about spring, and, as always, there’s the blossoms, their only yearly tradition that isn’t coupled with religious or personal holidays. when they go to see the blossoms, they don’t need to bring gifts, don’t need to go to church; all they need to do is wake up early, sit on that bench, and watch.

as the sky grows warm and red, he watches the blossoms light up, takes her hand in his; he always forgets just how pink the flowers are, as if they could never be naturally grown to look that way. the tidal basin reflects the fiery orange tone of the sky, just now skirting over to blue, and as he glances over at her, he sees that same smile of amazement on her face, that same fervor for life that she brings here each year. he can remember the first time they came here together, when her eyes weren’t so bright and were weary and sleepless instead; he can still remember the crick in his back from lying awkwardly in her bed the night beforehand, the strange sensation that he ought to hold her hand as they sat there together on a different bench, one he can’t quite remember.

it was late april in 1999 when padgett - or, rather, whoever was involved with padgett - tried to steal her heart, and as he remembers finding her covered in blood on the floor of his apartment, his heart speeds up anxiously; that night, she asked him to take her home, asked him to walk her up to her apartment, asked if he wouldn’t mind spending the night, so of course, he spent the night. when she asked him to stay in her bed, he obliged, a chaste and respectful distance between their pillows, a silent understanding of their boundaries passing between them. that night, she barely slept, her brow always furrowed in thought and her eyes wide open even as four in the morning passed. though he wanted to ask every minute if she wanted to talk about it, he knew her well enough to wait until she volunteered something, anything; he didn’t want her to internalize everything, but he didn’t want to make her doubt herself or feel unsafe. by six in the morning, she finally spoke.

“mulder?” he could remember her saying, his surname breaking the heavy silence in her home.

he hummed a response, faced her in bed.

“when do the botanical gardens open?”

he checked her bedside clock, figured they wouldn’t be open until around lunchtime. of course, that wasn’t the answer she was looking for.

“what about a trail?” she asked. “or…a forest, perhaps. i don’t know.”

“i think the blossoms are still out,” he offered, though he hadn’t actually known whether or not they were. thinking back on it, he wants to laugh at himself, wonders what would have happened if they drove into the city only to find the trees barren. 

“let’s go see them,” she said back then, her eyes filled with a kind of need that he could understand too well. 

so they went, and they sat there, and they watched as the sun rose beyond the trees, and she smiled, genuinely smiled. when he held her hand, she squeezed his thumb the way she always did, always does. the next year, when they came back to see the blossoms, having her hand in his was no longer a strange and unfamiliar sensation.

now, the sun is out, giving bits of yellow and orange light to the mostly-blue sky. though the city is still partially dark, there’s a warm sensation surrounding him, as though it’s more than fifty degrees out. as the water reflects the little pink blossoms, the lights outside of the jefferson memorial click off; as far as the city is concerned, it’s daytime. she stands up first, holds a gloved hand down for him to take, and as she helps him up, she leads him toward the memorial, walks beneath the blossoms and around the basin. as she is every year, she’s quiet, so he follows her expressions instead of her words, watches as she marvels at just how many flowers there are. petals are already starting to fall, the ground looking as though it’s covered in pink confetti.

as she slows down by one tree, he lets go of her hand, stands on tiptoe, and reaches up to pluck a blossom off of the tree. immediately - and expectedly - she scoffs, her visage turning from elation to disapproval.

“mulder, you shouldn’t pick them,” she whisper-yells at him, afraid to disrupt her own serenity with too loud a voice.

“whoops,” he deadpans, then combs a lock of her hair behind her ear, tucks the flower there. “pink and red. that clashes.”

at that, she rolls her eyes, takes his hand again. now, the sun is up, the sky as bright and blue as can be, and the crowd is starting to come toward the basin, all of the tourists looking to have their chance to see the flowers. as usual, they start to head out once the crowd heads in, but all the while, she keeps glancing back at the flowers, longing to stay just a few minutes more.

by the time they reach their car, he’s already excited to see the bloom again next year.


	42. having coffee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> eat shit, chapter 1 "at starbucks" you innocent idiot

she ducks into the shop, mulder at her heels as she closes the front door behind them; he retracts their umbrella, one that hardly kept them dry given the blustering winds outside. they came out here to damascus with the plan of hiking over the three-day weekend; however, the weather has had other ideas for them, has kept them holed up at an inn and reading in bed while the peak fall foliage rustles about outside. of course, they’re both let down with how the weekend has turned out, but neither of them is willing to admit that to the other.

in an attempt to salvage their sunday, they decided to head out early, to take advantage of a break in the rain; they put on jeans and sweaters and headed into town, unsure of where they were going but sure that they needed to get outside. however, their hour without rain was only an hour, and the downpour returned quickly, leaving no more than thirty seconds between feeling drops on their noses and being soaked through their clothes. as she walks up to the counter at this coffee shop, she smells like wet wool and rain; she tries not to let her sleeves drip into her handbag as she fumbles around for her wallet.

“two lattes, please,” she orders, her voice soft and a bit frazzled; he can tell that she’s uncomfortable in her wet clothes, and as always, she’s probably cold. “for here.”

after scully pays, the barista passes them a table number, and he follows as scully finds them a seat in the corner of the bronze-toned café, the little table nudged between the radiator and the long windows that look out on the street beyond the shop; she takes the seat by the radiator, so he sits down across from her, glances to his left and out at the street. no matter where they go, there are always similar choreographed routines when it comes to the rain; some put newspapers over their heads and walk with fervor toward their destination, some find immediate cover in haphazard and harried ways, and others just accept the rain for what it is. back when he and scully used to frequent rainy places for the x-files, their reaction was one of the utmost indifference, so it’s strange now to duck into a coffee shop as soon as a downpour starts. 

then, the barista sets two bowl-sized mugs in front of them, each adorned with lacy-looking latte art. scully offers a quiet  _thank you_ , then wraps her cold hands around her mug. she painted her nails a light pink; he didn’t notice that until right then.

he picks up his mug, takes a sip; usually, he adds sugar to his drinks, but the coffee’s too good to stir up and waste like that. as she brings her mug to her lips, she closes her eyes, breathes in the warm scent of it while little droplets of water fall from her sweater-sleeve and onto the marked-up wooden table. once the storm breaks, he’ll insist that they head back to the inn and put on some warm clothes, maybe take a hot shower. when he remembers the bathtub in their room, he softly smiles to himself. 

when she’s midway through her cup, and when the sun starts to peek out from beyond the windows, he offers, “worst vacation ever, right?”

at that, she laughs, closes her eyes and squints as she does so; he smiles at her as she hides her face behind her hands, the absurdity of it washing over them. when they packed for the weekend, they made sure to bring hiking boots and sunscreen, and so far, all they’ve worn out of their suitcases has been their pajamas. he finds, however, that he’s fine with how the weekend has turned out, letdowns and all. maybe they won’t get to hike a section of the appalachian trail, but when she takes his hand and squeezes it softly in hers, her smile bright and her eyes warm, he has to wonder why he thought the appalachian trail would be better than this in the first place. 

by the time he finishes his latte, she’s left wet marks where she rested her elbows on the table, and he’s never felt more uncomfortable in a pair of jeans in his life. when they leave the shop, the sun daring to venture out, she looks up and smiles to herself.

“mulder?” she asks as they start off in the direction of the inn.

he hums a response, looks down toward her.

“i know it’ll be muddy, but-”

“want to check out the creeper trail?” he supplies. “even just for a little while?”

she nods quickly, so they change direction, a little more pep in their steps as they go. maybe this vacation isn’t a lost cause after all.


	43. basorexia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is the start of a phase i went through in which i titled everything with rare and relatively unknown words that i found on a website that, before this phase even ended, ceased to exist.

scully works with walt at the hospital, and though he’s tall, he has a strange stature, as though his body is too big for his bones, so he hunches over whenever he walks, forms thin and ornate lines as he sets a honey-jar down on the kitchen table in front of them. a little out-of-work gathering, he called it when he invited her to his home; his bees had finally started producing honey, and with the weather getting warmer by the day, he figured that a day spent outside with many friends and coworkers would be lovely. when she asked back then if she could bring a plus-one, walt changed his expression, sat back farther in his bones, and at that, she nodded inwardly; no ring, she reminded herself, no ring says something about a woman. she fretted that men seemed only to view women in certain ways, then that her commitment wasn’t something she could wear on her finger.

“i infused some with rosemary for more savory cooking,” walt explains with educated finesse as he takes down a few more jars from his pantry. “another has lavender. i want to try that one on vanilla ice cream.”

if she were to describe the quotidian  _susie homemaker_  kitchens of her parents’ generation, this would be her exact description, from the stack of recipe-cards to the yellow-tinged windows to the red gingham tablecloths. the floors are a patterned linoleum; the air smells of bananas and coffee. she feels smothered, but when mulder reaches out to take her hand under the table, she lets out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding, turns to face one of the honey-jars. tracing over the rosemary with her gaze, she watches as some tendrils seem to float while others go directly to the bottom. 

walt keeps a garden, too. based on her schedule, and based on walt’s many mentions to her of his divorce last year, she hasn’t a clue as to how he has time to tend to all of this on his own. passion, she presumes, is the reason he can do it all, but though she also shares a passion for gardening, it’s been mulder who’s planted their tomatoes this year. for a moment, she wonders what it would be like to ask mulder to raise bees for her, and at the thought, she smirks.

“how many bees are in the colony?” mulder asks, feigning interest as he rubs between her knuckles. 

“well, i haven’t had a chance to count them just yet,” walt jokes in an adult man’s way, a way that she hates to find infinitely more attractive on mulder, “but i’ve heard that there’s about seven-thousand per frame, and my hives have four frames.”

mulder nods, and at that, scully smirks to herself, then whispers to him what seven-thousand times four is. without letting walt notice, he gives her a look to say that of  _course_  he could do that math in his head, so she bites her lip into a smile. 

while many others milled about outside, one of the nurses on scully’s and walt’s staff taking to the grill, scully asked about the honey, so walt took them inside, started showing them some honeycombs he’d collected this morning along with some of the honey he’d harvested. in front of them, walt leaves three separate jars, one with rosemary, another with lavender, and one that’s a golden hue that grocery-store bottles could only dream of imitating. 

“want to try some?” walt asks.

“sure,” scully says, so walt goes into one of the oak kitchen-drawers and takes out two little spoons, each one a silver color that clashes with the colors of the rest of the kitchen.

then, a familiar face - maybe the doctor walt shares an office with - comes into the kitchen, a frazzled look on her face. while walt hands them the spoons, the woman says something about not being able to start the charcoal on the grill, about how the lighter fluid must be expired if it even can expire. apologizing, walt excuses himself, follows her back outside. taking one of the spoons off of where walt left them on the table, mulder gives her a smug look.

“what?” she asks.

“do all of your coworkers look at you like that?”

then, she rolls her eyes, insists, “if he’s giving me any of that kind of attention, it’s unwanted.”

“yeah, i know,” he says, flipping the spoon around his hand. “interesting guy, though. i wonder where he keeps his bee suit.”

as she shrugs, he lets go of her hand, opens up the plain jar of honey. 

“so,” mulder says, dipping his spoon into the jar, “what do you think organic, homegrown honey has that store-bought doesn’t?”

“first of all, he never said that it’s organic,” she corrects, “and second, it’ll have local pollen, which store-bought may not. actually, there have been studies that-”

he interrupts her by holding the spoon in front of her lips, a drop of honey falling to one side of the silver metal. if she frets and refuses, then they’ll drip honey onto walt’s kitchen table, and she doesn’t want to make a mess, so she begrudgingly wraps her lips around the spoon, and,  _goodness_ , it’s sweet, warmer and softer than the kind she put in her tea this morning. she closes her eyes in pleasure, makes note to ask if walt’s planning on selling jars of this. as she licks remnants off of her teeth, mulder asks, “that good, huh?”

when she opens her eyes, he’s smiling down into his lap, as though smiling directly at her would feel overwhelming. as he meets her gaze, the spoon clean and abandoned on the table, he sees a little dribble of syrup at the corner of her lip, so he reaches out, thumbs the honey off of her face. 

she doesn’t understand how that contact can be simultaneously comforting and electric; though it’s been years since he first touched her in that way, each touch still feels new, an underlying familiarity now present as well. it’s a contradiction, but it’s a contradiction she doesn’t mind. as she swallows, she watches him glance to her lips, and though they’re in someone else’s kitchen, and though she’s never been one for public displays, she kisses him before he can kiss her. carding her fingers through his hair, she lets him pull her closer, hovers out of her chair so that their chests are flush against each other. her mouth tastes like honey and the breathmint he popped in the car; her heartbeat stays steady and slow, cool and calm. when they hear a door open, she softly pulls away, lets her hand drift down to his shoulder, to his forearm, to his wrist. 

“so,” walt asks as he returns to the kitchen, “what do you think? it’s good, right? and  _so_  fresh, too.”

“oh, it’s delicious,” mulder says, mischief that only she can detect lingering in his voice. 

“why don’t you take that jar home, dana?” walt offers. 

“we would love to,” mulder says for her, replaces the lid on the jar. “let’s bring this out to the car,  _dana_.”

but after they go out to the car, she has only one intention, and it certainly doesn’t involve returning to walt’s party.


	44. biunial

he licks a bit of yolk off of his thumb as he glances over at her; she’s brushing a spring of dill off her light-grey pantsuit’s sleeve, damping her bagel-sandwich against her plate. the shop, a little bakery tucked away close enough to the hoover building that they walked there but far enough that no one else here looks like an agent, is bustling at lunchtime, and though they managed to find a table despite the crowd, they’re stuck at a tiny two-seater, their knees colliding whenever he fidgets. when she looks back up, she meets his gaze, then picks her sandwich back up.

a bagel that’s also a sandwich, a lunch out that’s also one spent with scully. there are some combinations, he figures, that, even though they are wonderful when they’re separate, are infinitely better put together.

while she opted for a sophisticated schmear, a combination of lemon-dill cream cheese and lox on top of a whole-wheat bagel, he went for the traditional - and, as he realizes while yolk drips down his hand, messy - bacon, egg, and cheese. the best way to follow up a meeting about vampires, drugs, and alibis, he figures, is with a big lunch; plus, he owed her some real cream cheese.

when they’re working, he doesn’t notice the ludicrousness of their work attire, how she wears one color head-to-toe while his ties, he’ll admit, look as though a disoriented bat in broad daylight designed them. in the hoover building, they blend in among the other suits, but out and about as simply themselves, they look ridiculous, like cartoon characters. then, he imagines a cartoon of them, little animated figures running after cryptids while they hold yellow-tinted flashlights. at the end of each episode, he imagines, they would probably end up kissing, much to the viewers’ delight.

“scully?” he ventures between bites.

with her mouth full, she hums a response.

“where do you get your suits?”

after she swallows, she shrugs, says, “bloomingdale’s, nordstrom’s, wherever they’re available.”

“huh,” he says, taking another bite.

“where do you get yours?” she asks, throwing his question back.

“i don’t know,” he says. “a lot of them are old.”

the one he’s wearing is old, has a little rip in the sleeve that he’s never bothered to repair. he should take better care of it, he knows, but he doesn’t own sewing supplies, hasn’t a clue how to repair it. 

“we look so out of place here,” she says quietly, oddly delighted. “everyone else is…”

with a free hand, she motions around at the bakery, packed with the cooler college kids, women who look like yoga instructors, and young families whose children are much too loud for a public setting. no one else here seems as though they have an office job, or if they do, they aren’t dressed for it currently.

“is what?” he asks in mock-misunderstanding. “well, there’s janet over there,” he points at a tall woman whose cargo pants are an inch too short, “and she’s about to hike the entire appalachian trail without stopping. imagine that! we’ve done something like that, haven’t we? not  _that_  trail, i mean, but other ones. we’ve certainly walked a lot in one go. we aren’t that different from janet.”

“you actually know her?” scully asks, surprised.

at that, he gives her a look, so she smiles. he’s just making this up for their amusement.

“or sergei,” he says, lifting his chin toward a man holding a very fussy toddler and not looking too happy about it. “he and cindy - that blonde woman right there - met in high school. he gave up his big dreams to be an actor so that he could be with her. as you can tell, he believes that sacrifice was  _so_  worth it.”

as this sergei character frowns and tries to mellow the rampant anger he has toward his relentlessly crying child, scully laughs, stifles herself by bringing a hand to her mouth. for a moment, he pauses, just wants to take her in. though his life’s mission seems so overarching, he sometimes wonders if he could reduce his ambitions to simply making her happy.

“mulder,” she frets, smiling up at him. 

“and miquel, oh,  _miquel,_ ” he says, remembering the nametag on the shirt of the bakery’s cashier. “he has a doctorate in aerospace engineering, but after spending time in the space program and learning that we faked the moon landing, he couldn’t live with himself anymore. now, he makes people happy by bringing them bagels -  _never_  in halves - and  _always_  making sure they have real cream cheese. he’s a modern hero. though, admittedly, i think he’s too intelligent for this joint.”

she’s still smiling as she swallows another bite, and then, he notices a smear of cream cheese next to her pink, lipsticked lips; though he goes to tell her it’s there, to offer a napkin, his instincts get the best of him, so he reaches out, surprises her with his touch. at first, she flinches back, but then, she eases while he thumbs it off of her cheek, goes to take his hand back when he holds his wrist and keeps him there.

“there was something on your cheek,” he says, flummoxed at how she’s inspecting his shirt-sleeve.

“there’s rip on this,” she tells him, naturally assuming that he never knew about it. in all actuality, that’s been there longer than she’s known him.

“huh,” he gives as she lets him take his hand back. “i’ll have to bring that to my…”

he can’t think of the word for someone who fixes ripped sleeves, so he lets the sentence go.

“i can stitch it if you want,” she shrugs. 

“it’s okay,” he says, finishing off his sandwich.

“no, really,” she insists. “i can do it tonight. i have plenty of time.”

“okay,” he gives, knowing that she won’t take _no_  for an answer..

she nods in agreement, then takes one final bite.

“we should do this more often,” he comments, leaning his elbows against the table.

“make up stories about strangers?” she asks. “stitch each other’s clothing?”

“go out to lunch.”

“oh,” she says, and for a moment, he thinks this is a mistake, that she’ll think he means he wants a date, that she’ll think he means he  _doesn’t_  want a date.

he swallows hard, then meets her gaze once more.

“yeah, that would be nice,” she nods. “after all, hoover cafeteria food has gotten old.”

“there’s that soup shop down the road,” he offers.

“monday lunch?” she proposes.

“it’s a date.”

he might even bring flowers. 


	45. epithymetic

when he comes downstairs, the kitchen is too bright, too loud; he hovers his hand over his eyes, sleepily taking in his surroundings. something’s frying on the stove, and based on the sound quality, he assumes she’s playing music off of her phone through the living room’s speakers, the tune one he remembers from the eighties. as he reaches the last step of the stairs, he takes his hand away, sees her on tiptoe going into the kitchen cabinets while her tee shirt -  _his_  tee shirt - raises just above her buttocks. either she hasn’t heard him come downstairs yet, or she suddenly likes to sing in front of him.

for a moment, he hovers by the stairs, listens to her bop along to  _give a little bit of heart and soul, give a little bit of love to grow_ ; he’s brought back to when they were first together, when all of this was brand new and she started giving him long, easy mornings in her apartment, each one paired with the most substantial and indulgent meals of his week. back then, she took his dress-shirts and wore them not out of comfort - most of them were itchy and sweaty anyway - but out of a sense of purpose, a sense that he liked how she looked in them, the morning after. now, he’ll only wear a dress-shirt if he’s forced; plus, she looks better in that grey oxford tee than she did in his old dress-shirts. he should wear that tee to bed more often, leave it more politely strewn on their bedroom floor so that when she picks it up and puts it on in the morning, it’s soft, clean, and unwrinkled. 

he walks into the kitchen, finally recognizes the song; last night, when they watched another episode of  _black mirror_ , one much happier than that terrifying one about spiders and video game immersion, this song was in the background. as he comes up behind her, he wonders if the tune’s been stuck in her head. 

“good morning,” he says softly, hoping not to frighten her; then, he brings a hand to her shoulder, leans down to kiss her cheek. 

quietly, she smiles, asks, “are you in the mood for eggs?”

“sure,” he says though she’s already frying two anyway, the sunny-side up for him and the over-easy for herself. 

on another stovetop, turkey bacon - she, of course, insists upon it for their health - sizzles, and as the song changes to “you sexy thing,” bread pops up in the toaster. momentarily, he believes in heaven, or maybe just that computer-server version from the episode last night. regardless of a place beyond this world, of others beyond this earth, he figures the greatest pleasure known to mankind is derived from appetite, sexual or otherwise. while his stomach grumbles, she plates the eggs and toast, her hipbone peeking out from beneath his shirt. if there’s appetite of theirs that they can’t fill for each other, he knows that they have yet to find it.

before she can take the bacon from the pan, he leans down and wraps an arm around her hips, pulls her into a warm, lazy kiss, missing her lips at first but compensating when she giggles and steps up on tiptoe. though he hasn’t brushed his teeth yet - and though he knows she’ll complain about that - he kisses her again anyway, her weight shifted against him and off of her toes. back when they were first together, they had mornings like this, but now, they’re quotidian, remarkably average, boring as can be, but something about her makes them enticing nonetheless. 

as she pulls away, she mutters in mock-disapproval, “morning breath.”

at that, he laughs while she plates the bacon. quotidian yet exciting. he doesn’t understand this unexplained phenomena and never wants to. 

“scully?” he asks as she brings the two plates to the kitchen table; he opens the silverware drawer and takes out forks and knives while she pours herself a cup of coffee.

in response, she hums, goes to add some almond milk to her mug.

“you please all of my appetites.”

at that, she gives him a look, says, “i don’t know what that means.”

that’s good, he figures. some things are better left unexplained.


	46. paleomnesia

“i’ve told you this a million times over,” mulder insists with a lighthearted laugh. “plus, you were there too. no matter how many times i recount those events to you, they aren’t going to change, and your memory of them isn’t going to change.”

“i don’t want them to change,” she says softly, her head resting on his shoulder, her arm wrapped around his stomach. 

in her flannel pajamas, she’s particularly soft, and now that the weather has dipped into a chilly and humid forty-five degrees during the day and even lower temperatures at night, she gravitates toward him in bed, actively seeks out his warmth. as always, she’s cold, and he’s warm. simple science, he figures.

“i know,” he says, tracing a finger down her spine, “but i doubt you need me to help you remember it.”

she has the comforter pulled up over her shoulders, the bedroom’s heat on as high as their old house will let it go. underneath the covers, she’s wearing a pair of wool socks.

“please?” she asks as she looks up at him.

even in the low lamplight of their bedroom at night, her eyes are infinitely and indescribably blue, bluer than his. his heart beats once, his mind momentarily empty, and then, he closes his eyes, conjures images of that day.

“it was a normal day in the office, or so i’d assumed,” he begins, his voice gaining a cinematic quality like that of the narrator on  _pushing daisies_. as she curls up closer to him, she closes her eyes and smiles. “i was looking over some slides, thinking about how i needed to renew my eyeglasses prescription, when someone came knocking on my basement door.”

gingerly, he rubs her back, then continues.

“you see, the bureau had decided that i, of all people, was not a valuable enough asset and that my investigations needed to be investigated. now, i don’t work there anymore, never held too high a position either, but in my opinion, the federal bureau of investigation should investigate others before they investigate themselves, shouldn’t they? anyway, they sent this agent, and she was….”

“short?” scully supplies while he thinks of a word. 

“she certainly was short,” he gives, continuing as she laughs against his skin, “and she wore a suit too, a plaid one.”

“a plaid suit?” she asks, looking up at him.

“you can’t remember that suit?”

she shakes her head against his shoulder, so he furrows his brow. 

“looks like you do need me to remind you from time to time,” he jokes.

“it’s not my fault that your memory is superhuman while mine is subpar.”

“do you want me to tell the story or not?”

at that, she nestles back up against him, lets him continue. 

“though she insisted that she wanted to work with me, i saw right through that. after all, i’d read her thesis, and she rewrote einstein, so she was destined for better things. can you imagine that? rewriting einstein! if my office was fantastic enough to attract someone who rewrote einstein, then certainly, the bureau needn’t investigate me and instead should’ve congratulated me. or her, at least.”

“you’re getting sidetracked.”

“right,” he says. “back to the story. from the moment she met me, she started doubting me. i swear to you, it was immediate. only a few slides in, she was telling me about how the laws of physics  _do_  apply in space.”

“what a concept.”

“anyway, we ended up on a case, but i don’t remember that case,” he lies. he can remember everything about billy miles, remembers too much about that case and about bellefleur. though he figures she can see through his lie, she doesn’t correct him, so they let it go unnoticed. there are certainly worse things they could do. “what i do remember, however, is that we were outside in the middle of the night, rain pouring down all around us, the cold oregon air making me tremble, and what we’d been talking about, whatever we’d been talking about, made her laugh at its sheer absurdity. then, hearing her laugh made me laugh. she had such a brilliant laugh. i never want to forget it.

“it was the most brilliant moment. i can’t even begin to describe it. mostly, work for me was day-in and day-out, and when i wasn’t working, i was at home on the couch or out running. sure, i studied great phenomena, but even phenomena become boring when you do it from nine to five. but right then, in the rain with her, the world seemed more beautiful, more bright. it felt like one of those movies with the yellow backgrounds, you know the ones? like the movies in which life is more magical than real life tends to be, like the ones with camera angles that soothe you. the rest of the world just fades away, and your mind feels centered, almost like you’re meditating. everything seems infinitely more romantic than it did only a few minutes ago.

“that was the first of many times when she would bring me those moments, ones of pure clarity and adoration for this world. all i needed to find beauty in the dark and cold of the night were the sounds of rain and her laughter. there was another time when she played baseball with me, or just hit some pitches instead, and that was another one of those moments. or when i kissed her on the new year, or when she told me she was fairly happy, or when she fell asleep on my couch.”

softly, he cards his fingers through her hair.

“or right now.”

that merits a kiss to his shoulder; he smiles as he brings the story to a close.

“and i’m lucky enough to say that she’ll follow me to the ends of the earth. after all, i’ve proven that i would do that for her in a heartbeat,” he says. “sometimes, you meet unforgettable people, people who are brilliant in typical and atypical ways, people who make you think more critically. you meet people of fantastic mind, spirit, body…”

“mulder.”

“there are some people whose absence you feel for your whole life until you finally meet them,” he says, “and she was that for me. i can only hope that i was that person for her as well.”

against his chest, she breathes deeply, serenely. 

“i would imagine you’re exactly that person for her,” she comments.

 _thank goodness_ , he thinks automatically. thank goodness. 


	47. on halloween

“you’re shivering." 

"am not,” scully insists even though her shoulders are hunched forward, her knuckles white on the big bowl of candy she’s clutching. her eyes are downcast, the night’s shadows making her cheekbones look sharper, accenting the black lines are on face.

a cat, that was her idea of a halloween costume, just a pair of headbanded ears and eyeliner-whiskers to go with her black turtleneck and slacks from work. then again, halloween is on a monday this year, and mondays are her hardest workday, so he feels he ought to respect her effort. though he wishes they could’ve matched costumes this year, he hopes even more that they can go home soon so he can kiss her little penciled-on black dot of a cat-nose away. 

this year, he’s donned an old classic, his han solo costume. it seemed fitting, given the circumstances that have just come to light recently even though they occurred long ago and in galaxies far away. because trick-or-treaters never come anywhere near their house, they volunteer at their local library each year, help the librarians give out candy to kids while they slip the parents brochures on donating to the building’s restoration project. outside of the library are more decorations than he can count, from spiderwebs to skeletons to jack-o-lanterns. on an ancient boombox, they’ve been playing “monster mash” on repeat for too long. the night is humid and chilly, the kind of cold that seeps into his bones and stays there until he can warm up with a shower or some hot coffee. though there are plenty of leaves on the ground, the trees are far from bare. 

alongside him, she shivers again.

“my coat’s in the car,” he offers. “do you want it?" 

"i’m fine, mulder.”

then, a princess, a kangaroo, harry potter, and a dinosaur - all of whom are nearly half scully’s height - come up to greet her, echoing  _trick or treat_  in their young, shrill voices. at the sound, she instinctively smiles, and as he does each year, he mourns that this is the closest experience she’ll have to being a mother, pushes the thought away compulsively. she crouches so that the kids can reach into her bucket and grab some candy; the princess and dinosaur take one piece each, but the kangaroo has sticky fingers, so she laughs breathlessly as she scolds him, insisting  _it’s one piece per person, silly!_  for the moment, mulder’s on brochure duty, so he has to approach the parents that trail behind the ragtag group of little misfits; as always, the adults are uninterested even though they reap the benefits of the library all too often. at that, he sighs.

she checks her watch; it’s nearly eight in the evening, and she’s been awake since five-thirty this morning. though she knows he loves halloween, that it’s his favorite holiday, she’s too exhausted to put in much more effort. as soon as they get home, she wants to climb into bed and just sleep, no regard for whether or not the bedroom lights are on, not a care in the world about how she’ll probably wake up with eyeliner-whiskers smeared across her pillow. taking a deep breath, she wills herself to be festive for him, but as if he can read her mind, he says, “it’s getting late. maybe we should head out.”

“we don’t have to,” she says, stating exactly the opposite of what she wants.

he takes the candy bowl out of her hands, passes it to a librarian dressed as a witch. then, he reaches down for scully’s hand, says, “give me the keys, and i’ll drive.”

obliging, she pulls the keys from her pocket while they walk back to her car; she adjusts the passenger’s seat forward while he groans at how far up she keeps the driver’s seat; as soon as the engine’s on, she cranks the heater. 

“so,” she asks, “what’s made the king of halloween suddenly side to skip out on the evening’s festivities?”

he shrugs as he pulls out of the library’s lot. 

“it’s chilly,” he says. 

at that, she rolls her eyes, wishes he would answer the question. sure, she’s tired, evidently so, but she knows better than to think that mulder would leave early and insist on driving without having tricks up his sleeve. it’s the night for tricks, she figures, half-expecting there to be two-dozen eggs and a bulk package of toilet paper in the trunk, her boss’ address scribbled onto the back of mulder’s hand. she glances over at the way he’s holding the steering wheel, purses her lips; she’s overthinking this.

though he knows the route from the library to home by heart, he takes a wrong turn at a stop sign, so she lets out a breath, relaxes back against her seat. wherever they’re going, he has a plan, and though part of her fears for what that plan could be, she figures it can’t be anything worse than the things they’ve already done. he drives one mile past the wrong turn, then two, then three; if they’re going to be in the car for a while, she might as well be entertained, so she turns the radio on, some simon and garfunkel playing; she changes the station, shifts to something melodic, folky, and female. looking out her window, she breathes deeply. though he’s driving to who-knows-where, her day is over. it’s a special kind of pleasure, she knows, to have all of one’s duties finished for the day, to relax into the lack of personal expectations. her only obligations for the rest of the night are to brush her teeth and take her pills; a soft smile comes to her lips at the thought.

he reaches across the console and takes one of her cold hands into his warm one; gently, he rubs between her knuckles, errant streetlights of rural virginia punctuating the dark night. when they started working together, she dreaded nights like these, ones spent in the passenger’s seat of a cheap rental car while he drove too fast or too slow for her liking, never making legal stops and doing whatever possible to avoid a left turn, but nowadays, she misses them, misses having the crackling hiss of a fading radio station in the background of her memories, misses the sound of him crunching sunflower seeds between his teeth. most of all, she misses the in-between of it all, the simultaneously homeless and familial feeling of being in a car with him. despite all the evidence otherwise, she always felt safe when she was in the car with him, still feels safe now. 

his hand is sweaty, so she turns the heat down, the radio’s song shifting to some harry nilsson. her car isn’t like their cars of yore; they have satellite radio, a built-in navigation system, docks for their cell phones. she misses the bare-bones cars of their past, but as she sinks farther into her comfortable seat, she doesn’t miss them too much. nonetheless, it’s moments like this, she figures, that have been the most romantic and existential moments of her life, the ones spent in the car with him while not much of anything happens.

on the side of the road, he pulls over, turns the car off. 

“what are you doing?” she asks.

he shrugs. 

“parking.”

“mulder.”

“c’mon, scully,” he pouts. “have a little faith. when have i led you the wrong way?”

in the darkness, she gives him a look, and based on his tone’s shift, he knows exactly which look she’s giving regardless of whether or not he can make it out. 

“i promise it’ll be fun,” he gives, letting her decide. 

of course, she obliges, so she climbs out of the car, waits for him to lead. apparently, they’re parked next to some kind of farm, spaced trees lined up next to where he parked. he walks up into the thickets of trees, so she follows, her modest ballet flats sinking in the wet grass. 

“mulder, what is this?” she asks as he takes her hand once more, pulls her beneath the trees.

“it’s an apple orchard.”

“what?”

“an apple orchard,” he says, as though that’s the most obvious and quotidian statement in the world. 

“why are we at an apple orchard?”

he shrugs. then, she flushes, her heartbeat quickening.

“this is trespassing,” she realizes as he pulls her through more trees. 

now, she can discern where they are, sees signs for empires and galas. in her mind, she repeats  _this is a bad idea_  over and over again, staggers behind as he pulls her along. then, he stops suddenly, lets go of her hand as he looks up at one specific tree. 

“mulder, we need to get out of here,” she says, her tone quiet and unnerved. “this is illegal.”

“if anyone catches us,” he says while he stands up on tiptoe, pulls an apple down from the tree, “we’ll just say we got lost.”

at that, she rolls her eyes, but before she can retaliate again, he tosses the apple to her; she catches it while he picks one more. when he joins her in between trees, he sits down on the wet ground, takes a hearty bite of his apple.

“tart,” he comments.

“mulder.”

he opens up his arms for her.

“sit.”

reluctantly, she sits down alongside him; he wraps an arm around her, takes another bite. 

“did you ever do reckless stuff on halloween?” he asks her, his gaze up at the speckled stars above them. it’s a nice view, she figures, but the trees keep it from being open. stargazing was not tonight’s intention. 

“once,” she says. “it was in college. i egged my professor’s house.”

“why?”

“he failed my lab report.”

“ooh,” he says with excitement. “that’s a new side of you.”

“someone who eggs houses?”

“someone who fails lab reports.”

she punches him lightly, insists, “it was only one time.”

“the truth is out there,” he jokes, so she rolls her eyes. 

“did you ever do that kind of thing?” she asks.

“of course,” he says as she takes a bite of her apple, “and it was easy too. most of the houses on the vineyard are vacant after the summer. i stopped doing it, however, once i realized that the owners never had to clean up houses we covered with toilet paper. their housekeepers deserved better than our dumb pranks, you know?”

she nods in understanding. though he’s all for chaos, for fighting for the little guy at the cost of the big guy, he won’t take more than he needs, more than others can afford. like tonight, she figures. the orchard can afford to lose two measly apples, and she’s glad for it too; hers is sweet and tart, succulent in the darkness. 

“how’s work going?” he asks the dreaded question.

at that, she sighs, so he says, “i figured.”

“i’m just tired. that’s all.”

“you seemed a little wiped at the library,” he says. “i just didn’t want the night to end just yet, you know?”

“yeah, i know.”

wind whistles by, so as she takes another bite, she nestles in closer to him, his warmth like a beacon. the shifting leaves add a crackling hum to the night; she can hear him crunching through another piece of apple as she looks up at the bright and expansive plane of stars; her heartbeat feels cool and collected, like a river flowing sleepily through her veins. maybe it’s not being in the car with him that made life feel more romantic, she thinks; maybe it’s just him.

“want to grab another one for the road?” he asks as he tosses his core into the field. 

“sure,” she gives, so he stands up, picks them two more, and leads her back to the car. 

when they get back in, when he starts the engine, she sits back, feels the same as she did beforehand. at that, she smiles. the car, it seems, is not the common factor of her favorite moments.


	48. galericulate

something folky is on the radio, an artist with a sweet voice playing a country guitar that makes the speakers in scully’s car shudder. behind thick clouds, the sun hides while flurries of snow come down around them, the morning dark but still daylight; for once, she’s driving speed-limit. against the steering wheel, she stretches her hands, shakes her fingers to keep them warm. though she’s always cold, winter months make her body run especially low, so she wears woolen gloves as she drives, has the seat-heater she insisted on having in this car turned on high. as she turned up the climate control, he shed his light winter coat; the windows miraculously have yet to fog. 

it’s november 30th, yet they are just now going out to get a christmas tree. usually, mulder feels overjoyed about the holiday season once thanksgiving passes, always determined to make her favorite holiday more magical than it was the year beforehand, so they set out on black friday to go to the nearest tree farm to their rural virginian home, but the last time they did that was a few years ago, and he was too solemn and bittersweetly respectful to go without her. the first year she was gone, he cut down a tree from their property, decorated the tiny, deformed being by stringing burnt orville redenbacher and red beads in place of cranberries, but come christmas day, he took the thing out to the farthest edge of their - his - land and threw the little tree as far as he could. after all, it wasn’t christmas without her; he didn’t believe, and he didn’t understand, and after all, christmas is just capitalism and consumerism when you forget about christ. after that year, he stopped getting a tree altogether. he has yet to ask what she’s done for the past few christmases. 

for days, neither of them brought up the thought of a tree, but he started to miss the childhood train-set of her family’s that they started tracking around the tree after maggie had stopped holding christmases in her home, wondered where her heirloom ornaments were stored. he didn’t know how to ask her to make some of those shortbread cookies she made every year, the ones that would crumble all over his hands and had a little dollop of chocolate frosting on top; he wondered if she would still put evergreen-scented candles next to the stove, a reminder to make dinnertime smell like the holidays. however, they held a silent understanding that they didn’t want to overstep; though they’d known each other for so long, they still feared that one little misstep could cause all of this to go wrong, could send them back into separate homes.

then, he decided that life was nothing without risk and said he wanted a christmas tree, and then, she smiled.

though the song changes, the sound is still the same, all folky and sweet; outside, the snow falls faster, so she turns the wipers on so fast that they seem as though they’ll go flying off the windshield. 

“is this an album?” he asks.

it’s not festive, but he doesn’t care about that. they’ve got twenty-five more days for good old bing crosby, and he’ll be sure to subject her to his rendition of “all i want for christmas is you” at least once.

keeping her eyes on the road, she nods.

“i heard one of her songs when i got coffee last week,” she says. there’s at least a quarter of an inch of snow on the roads. “i had to ask the barista who it was, and she was nice enough to write the album down, along with directions to a music store. i hadn’t bought music in years until i went in there.”

“it’s pretty,” he comments. 

she turns off onto the dirt road that leads to the farm. on her side of the road is a long line of bare, blackened trees and a short stone wall, and on his side is a barren plot of what was corn over the summer; now, it’s short, golden, and stalky, an inch or two of old snow blanketing it. the sun has started to brim over the horizon, the sky becoming more blue. as the snow begins to still, she pulls off to park, turns off the engine.

the farm is small, just a family home, a barn, and a field of trees beyond the house. though some of the trees are freshly planted and tiny, some as tall as ten feet line the back of the field. they stand in long lines, signs about pricing and on how to cut your own tree lining the rows. as she reaches into the backseat, she picks up her scarf and hat, pulls them both on. when he steps outside, the day is more frigid than he remembers it being, so he dragons his breath, watches as it rises like smoke from his lips. she heads out of the car and takes the saw they always use out of the trunk. 

“so,” he asks after she locks the car, “how tall are we going this year? four feet? seven feet? ooh, _eleven?_ ”

“i doubt our roof is high enough for an eleven-footer,” she says as her boots crunch across the frozen ground. “we usually stop at seven, don’t we?”

“yes,” he says. while the walk past the house, he can see through one window to the matriarch of the household bustling about her well-decorated living room. with a wrinkled and familiar smile, she offers them both a hearty wave that he returns while scully smiles. 

at seven feet tall, the tree is just big enough that it’s a reach for him to put that angel tree-topper of hers on, an even farther reach for her, so he has the excuse to hoist her up against the tree, to struggle and wrestle that little thing on together. the last time they spent a christmas together, she went for a six-foot tree and a step-stool instead. for now, he decides not to think about that year.

“it’s cold,” she frets as they reach the edge of the tree-lines. “i should’ve worn something warmer.”

he looks her up and down, stares at her duck-boots and woolens and technical fabrics, and wonders what  _warmer_  would look like. then, he reaches out a hand to take her open one and wraps his fingers around hers.  _like this_ , he thinks. he’ll bring her hot cocoa later, after they’ve got the tree up; he’ll keep her warm.

walking past the newly-planted trees, they gauge size based on each other; scully-sized is too short but still cute, mulder-sized is solid and big in comparison to scully-sized but not so charming to those of a reasonable height, and something about a foot beyond mulder-sized is ideal. once she sees trees that reach a foot above his height, she slows their pace, starts heading down that line of trees. 

there’s something brilliant about the way snow brims on all of the trees, he thinks, and about how the air smells of firs, frigidity, and newness. he likes the thin scent of oncoming winter, the feeling that the air he’s breathing is pure and savory unlike the sweet and thick air of summer. as she walks alongside him, she keeps her gaze away from him and on the tip-tops of each tree, seeking out the perfect shape and height for their living room. he watches how she traces the horizon with the tip of her freckled and pale nose - he’s always loved her nose, the unique and inimitable angle of it charming and familiar to him - and how her eyes seem brighter with a backdrop of dark green and brilliant white. he can remember when she bought that scarf and hat, back when they went to maine on a summer vacation many years ago and popped into a shop of hand-knits; when she felt the deep blue alpaca wool twisted into a seeded knit, her little lips turned up, and she tried both on despite the heat outside. her skin porcelain and her hair longer than it ever was when they worked together, she’s her winter kind of beautiful, something he forgot he missed; he wants to take her home and wrap her up in bed, kissing her cold joints until she laughs. 

then, she stops and takes her hand back to point.

“what about this one?”

facing him, she has the brim of her hat falling below her eyebrows; she eyes him, then the tree. this one is tall enough, imperfectly lumpy toward the bottom but angular and thick at the top, filled with places to hang ornaments. he can picture it in their living room, white lights lining its branches, the  _merry christmas 1999_  and tiny alien ornaments dangling among the needles. as he shields his eyes from the newfound sun and looks up at the tip-top of the tree, he imagines hoisting her into his arms, his old bones protesting, his aged muscles powered by sheer will and the ticklish way she laughs, and placing that angel on top of the tree. on christmas, he can picture her taking a hearty swig of eggnog and kissing him right before she swallows, the taste of nutmeg and warmth on her breath, the house quiet and dark save for their brightly-lit tree.

“okay,” is what he manages, so she squats down with the saw, paws away the snow near the trunk. though it takes him a moment, he joins her down there, has to remember how exactly one cuts down a christmas tree. though they have yet to talk it through, he figures they’ll throw the tree in the back of her car and not on the roof. in theory, they should’ve talked this over by now, but for the moment, he doesn’t care if there are things hanging over them. he’s much more content to see this moment for what it is: a rarity, one of the few moments he’s been allowed, a precious bit of his existence. by now, he’s taken too many of these moments for granted. he might as well value this one.

she huffs out a breath, one of her little tells about how cold she is, so he checks off the ingredients in his mind: milk, chocolate, whipped cream, those big marshmallows she loves, maybe some cinnamon or peppermint. as she does most of the work in chopping the tree down, he has that sweet and soft folk song stuck in his head, and the snow begins to pick up once more.

for the first time in years, he’s excited for christmas to come.


	49. malneirophrenia

buds are on the trees; the mornings are crisp and cool, but the afternoons are long and warm, drawn out while the sun refuses to set. outside of their home, the grasses in the field are lithe and wispy, the sky cast in a sunset of pink, and as scully leads him out to the porch, her eyes are alight, her lips holding a breathless smile. she looks to him, then leaps down the porch-steps and races out into the grass.

she’s barefoot. she never goes barefoot.

as he always will, he follows her, his bare feet and aging heart protesting as he tries to catch up with her. though she’s tiny, she’s fast, faster than he can remember her being. while a breeze rustles his hair, he can hear her laughing on a whim, watches as her skirt plumes around her pale legs. her hair is a mess of sunlit red; he can feel sweat forming on his brow. finally, he catches up to her in the middle of the field, reaches out to take her hand and pull her back toward him. 

she looks up at him, their eyes meeting, and momentarily, he’s stunned. of course, he knows that she’s beautiful, but for the moment, he wonders if he’s ever truly looked at her before, if he actually took the time to study how many freckles she has and to pinpoint exactly which shade of blue her eyes are. though she looks the way she’s always looked, she also looks accented, even more exquisite, more beautiful than his memory could have preserved. softly, she blinks, presses a hand against his chest as she leans toward him, nestles herself against him.

it’s vivid, the warm and wet sensation against his shirt; as he looks down, he sees crimson staining the cotton, so he gingerly pushes her back, stares down to find her nose bleeding, the blood trailing down her lips and chin. after she stares at him for a beat, her gaze indifferent and unsurprised, she goes limp, her body collapsing among the long grasses of the field, and there’s nothing he can do to save her.

and then mulder wakes up.

he didn’t imagine the sweat; there’s plenty of that on his brow now, and the room feels too hot, like that springtime afternoon. frantically, he wrestles out from beneath the bedsheets, his breaths coming in staccato bursts. lying on his back, he balls up the blankets in his fists, forcefully shuts his eyes. it’s just a dream, he tries to remind himself, but that thought does nothing to ease his racing heart, barely touches the fearful ringing in his ears. though he knows that, from a psychological standpoint, this reaction is a result of his ancestors’ fight-or-flight response and that these feelings can’t hurt him, he’s desperate for some relief, a pill to take the edge off, something to ease his pulse and clear his mind of images of her dead and bloodied body.

then, his stomach lurches, so he sits up quickly, knows he can’t make it to the bathroom in time, but then, something brushes against his arm, so he twists toward the touch, sees her sitting next to him in bed, her mouth silently wrapping around words, her gaze filled with fright. she’s speaking, he realizes, so he takes a deep breath, holds it for a second, and on the exhale starts to hear her voice.

“mulder, what’s wrong?” she asks, her hand gingerly holding his bicep; her eyes are soft, concerned, alive.

though he wants to tell her, he can’t, for the words won’t leave his lips. thankfully, the nausea has dissipated, so he leans back onto his pillow, lets her follow him there. the room is dark, but he can still see the color of her hair as it splays across her pillow. even though she’s only on the other side of the bed, she feels too far away, so he moves closer to her. to his relief, she opens her arms to him, lies on her back so that he can curl up alongside her. with his head resting against her shoulder and with her hand carding through his hair, he feels his heart-rate begin to slow.

“what happened?” she repeats.

he can feel her heartbeat against his cheek. nothing, he swears, will ever fill him with more relief.

“bad dream,” he manages, his voice shaky. “you were dead.”

she nods softly; his nightmares usually end that way. however, he fears for the day when he has another of these dreams but she doesn’t die. if there’s anything more frightening than her mortality, it’s the thought that she isn’t as mortal as they might think.

“do you want to talk about it?” she asks.

she brushes his hair back as he breathes her in. they’re out of her standard dove soap, so she used his sandalwood-scented bar instead when she showered. her breath still smells like her toothpaste.

“not much to talk about,” he admits, for there isn’t. they ran, she was barefoot, and then, she died. in comparison to elaborate plots he’s had play out in his mind, this one is mundane and unoriginal, that thought almost making him laugh.

softly, she kisses his scalp, lingers there a beat longer than he would expect.

“i’m right here,” she says, her voice quiet and truthful. “i’m not going anywhere.”

though he has a million different thoughts about that statement, he pushes those all away, closes his eyes instead. all he needs to focus on is her heartbeat against his cheek and her steady breaths, two signs that she’s alive right now. if he fixates on the future and on death, then he’ll never be happy, so he focuses on this moment instead. trying to match her breaths, he counts the seconds of her inhalations and exhalations, finds himself relaxing to those numbers, a one-two in and a one-two-three out. 

leaning against her, he wraps his arm around her stomach, cozies up to her, doesn’t plan on letting go until morning comes. though she usually has trouble sleeping while they’re touching, he figures she’ll make an exception for tonight. as she reaches down and pulls the blankets up over them both, he has his answer to that question. 

“i promise to be here when you wake up,” is the last thing he hears before he falls back to sleep. 


	50. anabiosis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i believe this was the first of my work that received much of any attention.

his first act as a free virginian was breaking her bedside table.

it was an accident, a happy one if he’s honest; they were tanned and exhausted from their plane trip home, but he still managed to slip his fingers beneath the waistband of scully’s skirt as she unlocked the house, and one thing, more or less, led to another. at least, that’s how mulder chooses to remember it. according to her, his actions were a mild annoyance until after she did her little checks of the house, his lips obnoxiously tracing tiny, uncovered bruises on her neck as she did so. the safe was still locked, the windows were still locked, the doors were still locked. as she’d wanted it to be, the fridge was empty. everything was in its natural place. then, she gave in as he untucked her shirt from her skirt, as he fiddled with the clasp or her brassiere. 

it wasn’t as though they were starved of it; the two weeks prior had been filled to the brim with it, an alarming number of days spent hardly ever leaving their rented condo - mulder still had the bureau’s credit card number memorized, and he figured that if skinner called, he would write this off as a parting gift that he should’ve gotten six years ago - and never getting dressed. their bodies saw more sun, and they saw more uninhibited forms of each other, than they had for many years. though they’d chosen their life together, there was something about newfound freedom that made him feel like a young god. he could wake up beside her each morning, order a filet mignon with dinner, and take long walks on the beach with her at night, their hands entwined the whole time, never fearing who might see them now; it was like waking up from a coma, he figured, like spending one’s life in the darkness but then finally seeing light, like being told he was dying and then having a miraculous recovery.

so he practically carried her up the stairs while she moaned about their abandoned suitcases in the living room; his shirt was abandoned in the bedroom’s doorway, her skirt balled up at the foot of the bed. while he lifted her into his arms, her kisses sloppy along his jawline, he stumbled over his shed pants and leaned too hard against her bedside table. at the time, she huffed a laugh, then ignored the piece of furniture altogether.

they only noticed that i was broken the next morning when she didn’t hear her alarm go off. though scully had remembered to clean out the fridge and take out the trash, she’d forgotten to empty the glass of water she kept on her bedside table, so when she stared down at the table, now a pile splintering and aged wood, she saw unrepairable cracks, a wet spot, and an unsalvageable clock. 

“mulder,” she said tiredly, “we broke it.”

“broke what?”

he sat up in bed as she pointed down at the remains of the table. because she hadn’t let him go shopping for furniture back then, he hadn’t a clue where she’d bought it. 

“i can fix it,” he fruitlessly offered though they both knew that it was gone.

when she came home from work on wednesday, she pressed a flyer down on the kitchen table; he glanced over from his cookbook - a tattered and worn-down used copy of  _mastering the art of french cooking_ , a half-assed gift from her in 2003 after he failed to make dinner in this house more times than he wanted to remember, and though he’d felt a bit insulted when she’d given to him, he now relished in the sounds of pleasure she gave whenever he made ratatouille - to see an advert for an estate sale going on that saturday.

“i need a new bedside table,” she said as she went to make herself a cup of tea.

“a hardier one,” he added as he flipped through note-addled recipes. 

“we’re going together.”

at that, he looked up, his eyes filled with a mixture of awe, surprise, and pure thankfulness.

before their vacation, and before their little tryst with the bureau, they never went out together, not even for groceries or prescriptions. though part of him instinctively thought to stay home instead, he took a deep breath and decided to coach himself out of that thinking. after all, he could go out with her now, and somehow, that freedom felt like everything.

as she walks around the sale, he people-watches, something he hasn’t been allowed to do for far too long. the house they’re in is giant, old and creaky but expensive nonetheless, and scully wasn’t the only one to find their flyer given the small crowd milling about in the living room. there’s a woman in a big pink hat, one completely unfit for the snowy weather; a father tries desperately to convince his teenage daughter that a high-quality bed with a minuscule price is  _perfect_  for her bedroom. for the most part, scully tunes them out, but when she sees a young couple eying old quilts and sweaters, she takes mulder’s hand more possessively that she ever did on the beach.

“i haven’t seen any yet,” he says as they go up the vibrant oak staircase of this house. though he wishes he could give her a big place like this, he knows she would prefer their little place tucked away from the rest of the world far more. that’s a perk of being dead or missing, he figures; you never need to care about what others think, and you never need to compare yourself to others. if his self-confidence dips now that he’s alive again, he knows exactly why.

“me neither,” she says as she approaches one of the bedrooms, lets go of his hand.

softly, she walks alongside the modest and aging twin bed, leans against the window-seat that overlooks a long, trimmed field. with the sun coming in, her hair is alight, the stubborn sunburn on her ears almost matching its color. her tan coat is buttoned up, and beneath it, she’s wearing one of his favorite sweaters of hers, a grey cashmere with a hole in the wrist, the softest and most worn-in sweater she owns. she runs her fingers across the seat as though she’s imagining what a life in this house would be like, what a life as a different woman could be; when she glances back at him, he knows that her little glimpse of that life means nothing, that she would rather have a broken bedside table and an undead partner than an elegant life in a too-big house. 

partner? the word makes him stop. now that he’s back, he ought to ask her to marry him. at least, he ought to bring up the topic and see if marriage is something she wants. though he once thought that he wasn’t the marrying type, there’s an inevitability he feels toward her, a connection he knows will never quite be severed. if there’s such thing as forever for him, it’s with her. from that revelation, marriage seems like the next logical step.

she dawdles up to a bedside table, one made with dark wood and priced to be sold quickly; looking it over, she doesn’t seem to like it, so they head out of this bedroom and into the next.

“this is nice,” he says as they enter a room with floral wallpaper and oak furniture; yes, this would all fit better in their home.

“the house?”

“being out here,” he says while she squats down next to a table, pulls out its one little drawer. “being with you and not having to worry about anything.”

she looks up at him slowly, softly, and tries not to make eye contact. what that means, he knows, is that she feels vulnerable, that one look will make her cry, so he decides to give her space, starts walking away and-

reaching out, she stands up and tugs on his sleeve so that he comes back toward her, then stands on tiptoe as she kisses him, one arm wrapping around the back of his neck while her open hand holds his cheek. for a long time - too long, given that this isn’t their home, that other people are there - she continues the kiss, his mind cautious and alert in ways it no longer needs to be. he holds her close, lets her lean against him, but then, he shifts his weight too quickly, stumbles, and ends up collapsing onto the floor, a loud clattering noise resounding throughout the old house. in a stunned moment, he figures something must be broken, be it the bed-frame next to them or one of his ribs.

first, there’s silence, and then, there’s her eruption of laughter as she moves closer to him on the floor, as he can feel her warmth so close to him.

his second act as a free virginian is breaking someone else’s bedside table.


	51. anesis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [listen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhaPHtVUaX4)

he first heard her play this record at her mother’s house a week after her remission. 

in her mother’s living room, scully ran her fingers over the records shelved next to the books, the intricate way she looked at each title and fraying sleeve building a warm energy in the mostly-vacant room. there was something about being in someone else’s living room, he figured, that made him feel both comfortable and incredibly uneasy; though the elements of home were stacked up throughout the room, they were never the elements of his own home, of anywhere he’d lived, so all of the warmth was artificial for him even though she relished in it.

the room was dark as she pulled “new skin for the old ceremony” off of the shelf, and in the kitchen, there was a plate of warm cookies waiting for them, maggie’s little way of convincing mulder that he was welcome here even if bill was still in town, still celebrating his sister’s miraculous recovery, and still questioning how exactly she could have been saved. with the sky turning to an evening red, she took the record out of the sleeve, her hands as graceful and steady as a surgeon’s, and when she brought it onto the aging record player, she seemed practiced in her motions until she set the needle down midway through the first song, skipping the introduction altogether.

when it came to her illness, he could never question her about it, could never bring himself to ask why she gained atypical quirks or did things like this, stand silently in the living room and play a record for no reason; as “chelsea hotel no. 2″ started to play, he wondered what she could mean by this song, if she’d even meant to play it in the first place, but as he took a slow breath, the record bringing a lower pitch to the evening, he let those wonders fade away. padding over to the window, she leaned against the sill even though she had plenty enough strength to stand on her own. the record skipped on the word  _limousine_ ; uncomfortably, he stayed in the middle of the room while she stuck to the edge. 

on that sunday morning, she’d asked him to come over - just for the afternoon, she’d said, a casual invitation that he would’ve taken with ease had she been in her own home, but because this was familial territory, he’d been hesitant - for reasons he didn’t know. though he figured she wanted his company, she didn’t seem to need him specifically; they’d made sandwiches for lunch, played a half-assed game of monopoly, laughed at times, all things they did normally, but he knew that his presence was replaceable, that any of her other friends could’ve come over instead.  _don’t ask,_  he told himself, but as he approached her by the window, he needed know.

“scully?” he asked quietly, deeply, in tune with the record.

half-turning, she faced him at an angle, her emotions unreadable. 

“why did you invite me out here?”

though he wasn’t intimately close to her, he could still hear the way she breathed, the quiet and slow inhalations that neither of them expected to continue. then, she softly closed her eyes, her world going from quiet to over-stimulating in a second; as his heart pounded, he knew he shouldn’t have asked, so he retreated back, but luckily, she caught his wrist, didn’t pull him toward her but nonetheless let him know that she wanted him nearby, that she would come around if he would give her a moment to compose her thoughts.

weighing her words, she looked up toward him but didn’t meet his eyes, said, “because you look at me the same way as you always did.”

her hand drifted away from him and back down to her side, and as she looked back outside, the night had turned into a deeper, darker blue, the stars about to come out. 

“no one knows what to say to me nowadays, not that they did before the remission,” she admitted. “there’s this sense of renewal, like i’ve given everyone a gift, like i’ve reminded them that their lives are worth living. it’s repulsive.”

softly, he nodded even though she wasn’t facing him.

“it’s too much family, too much togetherness,” she said on a sigh. “everything is supposed to go back to the way it was, but instead, people look at me differently, and it makes me feel sick.”

turning away from the window, she looked up at him, and then, she was closer than before, intimately close, but he forced his heart to calm, dared not change his demeanor given what she was telling him.

“but you just see me as me,” she said, her eyes still bright and blue despite the darkness around them. “i can’t tell you how much that means to me.”

now, she’s making dinner to the same record - the very same, saved from when they cleaned out her mother’s home - as he walks in the door, the air outside just starting to go frigid, the trees losing leaves and her coats coming down from the attic.

“hey,” he says quietly as he takes off his gloves and jacket, hangs them both on their respective hooks by the door. 

“leonard cohen is dead.”

the same song plays in the background, and momentarily, he wonders if she ever thought they would outlive leonard cohen.

“huh,” is all he can offer while he glances over at what she’s making. spinach and feta lasagna, one of her favorites. now that the weather’s gone cold, she never wants a chilled salad for dinner anymore, has to find her greens elsewhere. though she’s still in dress-pants, she put a casual sweater over her button-down, her hair still in a braid from this morning. the heater is cranked up; she’s always cold, and today is no exception.

toeing off his shoes, he heads over toward her, brings one hand to her hip while he leans down to kiss the side of her face; remembering the last time they played this record, he wonders what it would’ve been like to kiss her then, to tell her just how much he loved her at that moment, to express that even though she wanted everything to go back to the way it once was, he desperately needed things to be different, needed their next tragedy to leave him with the assurance that, no matter what happened in the end, she would know that he loved her. it only took going to the ends of the earth and a daring new year’s kiss more to convince him to say those words out loud. at the thought, he huffs a laugh to himself. how simple it all could’ve been, he knows, if there weren’t such complicated people.

“how was your book club?” she asks as she brings the tray into the oven.

as the song changes, he sits down at the kitchen-table and begins to tell her about his evening.


	52. in sickness (ii)

**Anonymous said:**  Love your stories! Please post one of your 'Scully is sick and Mulder takes care of her' fics...

_[a past fil](http://everydaymsr.tumblr.com/post/146087999974/in-sickness)l_

* * *

before the kettle can hiss, he takes it from the stove, pours the hot water into her favorite mug and over a bag of echinacea tea; he sets the kettle down on the counter, takes a honey-jar from the cupboard, stirs a hefty spoonful into her tea. across the room, she lies on her side on the living room’s couch, a blanket wrapped tightly around her body, an abandoned bowl of soup on the coffee-table in front of her.

doctors make the worst patients, scully told him once during their days working the x-files. there’s something about understanding what is wrong with you, he surmises, that makes enduring something like the flu all the more traumatic; though you may know exactly what is happening in your body, you still can’t stop it from happening.

“do you think you can drink something?” he asks softly as he pads over to the couch, her mug warming his hards.

with her eyes closed and her brow furrowed in pain, she gives a quiet, uncommitted, “no.”

“you sure?”

he leaves the tea on the table; sitting down alongside her, he goes to run his fingers through her hair but second-guesses that gesture because of the splitting headache she’s had all day. as she scoots over toward him, rests her head against his quadricep, he swears that the heat from her forehead could burn a hole through his pants. gingerly, he rests his hand on the back of her head, rubs his thumb softly against her temple.

he tried giving her soup, a plan that didn’t work because she wouldn’t eat it. he tried giving her advil, heard no end about how fever reducers only end up making fevers last longer. he tried massaging her shoulders, an action that only left her more irritable and achy. when he recommended tamiflu, she scoffed and insisted that that stuff’s controversial, that it’s a placebo. now, he has tea for her, but she doesn’t want the tea either. though she’s been sick around him plenty of times, it’s been years since either of them last had the flu, so his run-of-the-mill fever cures won’t work. if he knew what she needed in order to feel better, he would go to the ends of the world to get it for her, has done that once before already, but for now, he hasn’t a clue as to what will help.

communication, he remembers; they haven’t always been good at that, so he takes a deep, centering breath and keeps his voice steady as he asks.

“what would make you feel better?”

she takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, jaggedly. last night, she spent the whole night coughing, and now, he can’t imagine how much her back hurts.

“my book,” she says quietly. “it’s on the table.”

leaning forward and trying not to shake her head, he picks up her thick copy of  _the goldfinch_ , a new book by an author she likes. though she bought the book the day it came out nearly three months ago, she hasn’t had a chance to read it until recently. with a thin blanket of snow covering the long grasses outside, they figured they would have a sweet weekend spent inside, the stove warm while they read together, but instead, he’s spent the weekend making soup while she writhes inconsolably.

“are your glasses upstairs?” he asks, but at that, she shakes her head against his leg, winces at the motion.

“would you mind reading it to me?” she asks, looking up at him. “the light’s bothering my head, and i don’t think i could read it on my own, but i want to know what happens next.”

though he’s, of course, going to do that for her, he pauses momentarily, sees the quiet desperation in her eyes; she wouldn’t ask this of just anyone, not of someone she doesn’t know as fully and remarkably as she knows him. he knows how she fears deep personal connections, how she’s always strayed in order to keep herself safe, so when she asks things like this of him, he knows to handle those asks with the greatest care.

he sets the book on his lap, takes his reading glasses out of his shirt-pocket, and opens up to the page she’s bookmarked.

“ _i don’t know how long i was out_ ,” he begins to read, his voice quiet and low. “ _when i came to, it seemed as if i was flat on my stomach in a sandbox, on some dark playground - someplace i didn’t know, a deserted neighborhood._ ”

she closes her eyes once more, and as he turns the page and keeps reading, she whispers to him a soft, sincere, “thank you.”


	53. wednesday, 7:00pm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this right before thanksgiving, when my mother and i were in costco together and when we saw nice woolrich coats on sale. she commented that one of those coats would make a lovely gift, and at that point, i was in a phase of life in which hearing something like that and then thinking of how i didn't have anyone to give a christmas present, a really good present, something that would be useful and memorable and would bring a smile to their face whenever they saw it, put me immediately into a melancholy mood. i was also dealing with horrible nausea that had been going on for months and wished so greatly that i could eat a normal, easy meal again without being fearful of the consequences. this happened that night, and only in retrospect did i realize how raw and vulnerable this was for me. it holds a very dear place in my heart.

it was a record snowfall in virginia the weekend before thanksgiving, two feet falling overnight and little to no visibility on the roads; as a result, her usual sunday afternoon trip for groceries turned into a sunday spent stuck in her stuffy apartment, the heater on full blast and her last bag of chamomile tea keeping her company while black friday adverts played on television in the background. now, come wednesday evening, she’s mostly alone in costco, a miraculously silent place given that the next day is the holiday. when she came in the front entrance, the greeter told her where to find the turkeys as if she were shopping last-minute for holiday dinner, but scully doesn’t need a turkey this year. 

plain greek yogurt, almond milk, eggs, paper towels: her shopping list is as white as the ground outside. she picks up chicken breasts, salad makings, blueberries, frozen falafel; she barely has the energy to cook nowadays, but nonetheless, she keeps the staples on hand even though she ends up going for a can of progresso soup and a glass of wine at dinnertime anyway. over the years, she forgot how to cook, was accustomed to coming home to a bright kitchen where everything smelled of warm garlic, so now, each evening comes as a shock, an uncomfortable revelation that she’ll be cooking alone, eating alone, going to bed alone. by now, the guys at the greek place two blocks over know her name, phone number, address, and order by heart.

shampoo, soap, calcium and magnesium capsules, the list goes on. as “little saint nick” plays jovially throughout the store, she passes by all of the christmas decorations and wrapping paper, slows down momentarily. the false-firs have changing lights, going from color to white to color once more, and the inflatable snowmen and light-up stags look drab and more unsettling than they did last year. why is it that people put trees in their houses around the holidays? somehow, out of all things, she’s never questioned that before. running her fingers over a roll of red and gold wrapping paper, she mentally tallies the gifts she needs to give this year, knows she has to send some to bill’s family and of course to her mother, but aside from them, she hasn’t a clue as to who else she’ll wrap presents for. momentarily, she remembers the tie she sent skinner two years ago, smiles softly at the kind note he sent her way in thanks. maybe she’ll send him another one.

but she doesn’t have many people to give to this year. she doubts she’ll get a tree. before she can over-think that, she leaves the aisle promptly, heads in search of a new winter jacket. they have those puffy patagonia ones that she likes marked down, so she mills around that section, the store near-silent as “jingle bell rock” plays. it’s a liminal space, she knows, remembering a night many years ago. back then, mulder explained liminal spaces between her legs, and she half-listened at the time but could recite his very words with ease now; they’re a halfway point, somewhere where no one lives, a space that’s intended to be passed through, so are they really there, or are they not? at the time, she told him to be quiet, but she never thought that, in the end, he would listen. 

at a rack of jackets, she stops, stares down a long line of marked-down woolrich coats, a fine brand at an even finer price. they’re men’s sizes, so she would never be able to fit one, but they’re tailored so wonderfully, all black wool stitched to perfection, and just by touching one, she can tell how warm it would be. the lining is soft, the pockets deep, the buttons tough; she’s had trouble recently finding coats like this one, ones made to last more than a winter or two, so she takes one off of its hanger, wraps it around her body in a futile hope that maybe, just maybe, it will fit, but of course, it’s massive, the shoulders inches upon inches too wide. as she goes to slip the coat off, she catches sight of herself in a mirror and stares.

three years ago, she was at a charity gala - the cause for which, she can’t remember, but it was formal, and she was there in an estimable capacity, and mulder rented a tuxedo for it - and in the midst of the loud bustling of a crowd, of the fundraiser’s auction, of the small-talk with coworkers she barely knew, she needed a breather, so she stepped outside of the hotel where the event was held, stood in the city-street until she could catch her breath on that december night. of course, mulder followed her out, his coat slung over his shoulder, his eyes warm and mildly concerned. though he didn’t need to ask what was wrong - he, of course, understood her overwhelm - he stood awkwardly alongside her for a moment while passersby on the street marveled at the well-dressed man and the woman in a gown who both looked as though they needed a cigarette or two. softly, he draped his coat over her shoulders and kissed the side of her head, his lips landing on a bobby pin in her updo. then, it started to snow.

she looks at the price once more, remembers how mulder’s one winter coat - can’t have more than one, he always insisted - is ratty and showing its age, remembers how she used to slide her hands into its pockets and let her fingers poke through the holes in it so that she could trace his hips with her fingertips. has he bought a new one yet? though it’s not her business, she wants to know if he has one, could easily take her phone from her purse and call him to see if he bought one yet, but she hesitates, checks the coat’s price one more. it’s a nice coat, she figures, so she takes one in mulder’s measurements down from the rack, sets it in her cart. at worst, she has a present for bill now.

it’s a terrible idea, she knows, but after she packs her car with her purchases, she makes the turn out of the store’s lot so that she can head toward his home. after this storm, he’s bound to need a coat, and she really ought to check up on him anyway. what if the heating isn’t working? he doesn’t have a car, and the cell reception out there is next to nonexistent. she just doesn’t want him to freeze. it’s a friendly concern, conviviality and nothing more. as she reaches the gate to the driveway, she climbs out of the car, crunches her boots through the snow as she opens it in a practiced and all-too-familiar way. thankfully, the lights in the house are on while she drives up, and there’s smoke coming out of the chimney. 

as she steps up the icy porch - she’ll have to warn him about that - she holds the coat in her arms, knocks with caution even though she knows he can see her through the kitchen’s windows. as he greets her at the door, he wears a soft smile, a kinder look than he wore the last time they saw each other. 

“hey,” he says as he lets her in, doesn’t bother with her coat because of how full her hands are. “what brought you out to this neck of the woods?”

taking a deep breath, she feels her heartbeat slow at the scent of pesto and warm food; whatever he’s cooking, it smells marvelous, and the living room is so warm and cozy that she wants to melt into it, fall asleep on the couch and never go back to her dismal apartment. then, she breathes out and remembers that this is how all of her visits begin, especially the ones that end in yelling.

“i was at costco,” she says, still in the doorway, still with her boots laced up, “and they had woolrich coats, really nice ones. i remembered how your coat was so mangled last year, and after this storm, i didn’t want you to go cold, so…”

she holds it up quietly, suddenly feeling embarrassed. if she wants him to be able to live without her, to be able to get through his days without relying on her, then the last thing she should do is buy him is a winter coat because she doesn’t know if he’s capable of doing that himself. swallowing hard, she wishes she could turn back time, could scold herself for thinking of him at the store, could remember that their lives are separate now. however, he’s soft as he takes the coat in his hands, holds it up in front of himself. of course, the measurements are perfect, and as he slips it on, she sighs internally, thinks that maybe this gesture was right. he buttons the coat, twists and turns in it, models dramatically to make her laugh.

“this is  _nice_ ,” he says. “how much do i owe you for it?”

the comment is offhanded, and though she knows she shouldn’t be, she feels heartbroken about it, stumbles over her words.

“i had a gift card,” she lies. “some kind of credit card rebate. it didn’t cost a thing.”

“oh,” he says, and if he doesn’t believe her, he makes sure not to show her that he doesn’t.

“how’s everything out here?” she asks, looking around the house.

the living room is tidy, the bookshelf in line and the throw blankets folded neatly on the back of the couch. on the coffee table, there are two books,  _the highly sensitive person_  and carl sagan’s  _cosmos._  miraculously, the floor looks recently vacuumed, and the sink is empty. there’s salmon fillets on the stove, along with boiled asparagus mixed with cheesy pesto. though he’s growing a beard again, he holds the scent of some cinnamon beard oil, as though he’s taking good care of it this time around.

to her disbelief - and, somewhere deep down, to her chagrin - he’s doing well.

“great,” he says, hanging the coat on a hook by the door. he runs his fingers down it, holds a gentle smile as he does so. “i got the wood stove burning over the weekend. the storm was killer, though. the power went out, and chuck and tim from down the road had to come help me out.”

“how are they?” she asks, leaning against the kitchen table while he goes back to finishing dinner. 

“same as always,” mulder says while he takes two plates from the cupboard. “they want me to dress up as santa claus for claire and little molly this year. apparently, when tim dressed up as santa, those two figured it out too easily, and that caused a whole mess of tears.”

lightly, she laughs, watches as he divides the salmon fillet in half and puts each piece on its own place. then, she sobers.

_he wants me to stay for dinner._

“how bad has the snow hit the hospital?” he asks, giving one plate - hers, she assumes - extra asparagus because he knows how much she likes it. beneath her coat, her heart pounds. “i haven’t heard too much about any accidents, but they’re bound to happen in weather like this.”

last night, a semi-trailer hit a minivan, and in the emergency room, two children from that minivan died right in front of her. instead of saying that out loud, she unties her boots, leaves them next to his by the door.

“the holidays are always hard,” is all she says as she hangs her coat next to his new one. 

“santa claus is coming to town,” he says blissfully. “and so are the drunk drivers.”

uncomfortably, she nods while he sets down the two plates, pulls out a chair for her. she thanks him, then lets him grab silverware to set the table.

“water? wine?” he asks. “well, no wine. there’s none in the house. oh, and you’re driving.  _definitely_  no wine.”

he sets down two glasses of water, then sits adjacent to her at the table. waiting for him to take the first bite, she sits there frozen, everything so typical and so atypical all at once. at some point, something will go wrong, she knows, so she cautiously takes a bite, but then, her thoughts fade away; the salmon is warm and well-spiced, and,  _goodness_ , when was the last time she had a meal this good? for once, she has to hold herself back, has to slow down as she eats, has to remind herself to savor and not devour. the pesto is nutty and sharp, the asparagus perfectly cooked, and she’ll have to ask him for this salmon recipe. when she glances over to him, her eyes thankful, he gives a soft smile back. 

by the time he’s bringing their plates to the sink, she mills around awkwardly in the kitchen, knows that their social rhythms require her to leave shortly, but she doesn’t want to go, finds the thought of her stuffy apartment disparaging, but nonetheless, she ties her boots back on, slides her coat over her arms. 

“don’t be a stranger, okay?” he says as he approaches her, as her hand hovers over the front door’s handle. 

reaching out, he brings a hand chastely to her arm, kisses her cheek, makes her mind go blank and then become filled with color. he opens the door for her, slips on a pair of shoes so that he can walk her out the way he always did. while he stands at the edge of the porch, she climbs back into her car; he waits until her car’s started, until she’s beyond the gate, until he can’t see her taillights anymore.

then, he walks back inside, leaves his boots by the door. at the sight of the new coat hanging up, he laughs, then takes it off of the hook and heads upstairs. in the bedroom closet, he pulls aside a coat he bought last week, one with the tags still on its sleeve, and with one look, he knows that this coat and the one scully bought are the same, that they went to the same place, saw the same thing, and had the same thoughts. he’ll return it tomorrow, the one he bought. of course, he’ll keep the one she bought.

maybe he’ll call and see if she has plans for thanksgiving. as they both know all too well, far stranger things have happened.


	54. reazione

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and the rare english word phase transformed into a just use a foreign language word as your title phase

for the nine hours they spent on a plane, he never once sought out entertainment. 

“and that’s a redox reaction,” scully explained over a series of inked and torn-up cocktail napkins, each advertising  _coca cola, deliziosa e rinfrescante_  in red text on one corner. “it involves a transfer of electrons, thus changing the oxidation number of the molecule.”

“so you lose or gain one?” mulder asked, the lighting above their economy-class - her insistence - seats sparse and dim, making him squint from behind his reading glasses. 

“when you lose and electron, it’s oxidative,” she said, tapping her pen at her balanced equations and at the diagrams that he couldn’t understand. “when you gain an electron, it’s reductive.”

“so when you gain, you reduce?”

“you can look at it that way, yes.”

“physics was more interesting.”

“yeah, but i’d need real paper for that, and we’re fresh-out.”

once they both tired of chemistry, she leaned against him, swore she was going to read while he took a nap but nodded off before he even could; when the attendants announced that they were about to touch down in florence, they both woke with a start, the hours passing without their knowledge, the time-change sitting uncomfortably in their bones. though scully managed the first day without complaint, mulder felt woozy all day, but the little reassuring touches she gave, her shoulder-shakes in order to keep him awake, made the fatigue feel worthwhile.

for her fiftieth birthday, she wanted to go to florence; they’d planned the trip out since 2004, made elaborate scandals on notebook-paper while he googled semi-legal practices that should’ve thrown up red flags to their service provider. on her neatly-kept bucket list were seeing the statue of david, spending time with botticelli’s  _primavera_ , sipping a caffe latte on the cobbled streets, buying a pair of high-end leather boots; she wanted to journal while looking out over the arno, and she wanted to tour cathedrals that brought a whole new meaning to her faith. however, a forty-seventh birthday spent with some kind of stomach virus that they managed to have simultaneously made her want to lower the trip’s date by a few years, so it’s the twenty-third of february, they’re in the hallway of the uffizi gallery, and the marble sculptures that line the walls have skin that matches hers. if it weren’t for the brightness of her red hair, he would’ve lost her in the crowd by now.

catching up, he brings a hand to her coated shoulder - it’s a rainy day, and he can’t figure out what the temperature is because, despite his days at oxford, he still doesn’t understand celsius - so she turns halfway toward him, her eyes softly apologizing; in her excitement to be here, she’s left him in her tracks, her brand new leather boots moving far faster than his sneakers feasibly could. taking his hand, she silently leads him toward a marble staircase, and as they walk up with a crowd, he tries to read the signs around them; she turns off at  _rinascimento_ , mostly ignores the first few paintings in the gallery. then, she slows her pace, squeezes his hand as she stares forward, her breath hitching in her throat.

when they saw the statue of david, she was like this: hands fisted at her sides, breath absent, eyes glossy with tears of pure amazement. though she’s left-brained, likes to teach him chemistry on cocktail napkins, watching her reactions to art makes him want to throw away the left-brain right-brain ideology altogether. 

because of the stock-stillness in her legs, he tugs her toward a bench; though he’s heard about the crowds that gather around this painting, the room is quiet and mostly empty now, so they can sit down together, their sides flush, without interrupting anyone else. he’s seen this before in pictures, women in sheer dresses dancing on a bed of flowers. though there must be some grand meaning behind it, that’s lost on him, but nonetheless, the intricacies of the floral patterns and the soft lines of fabric leave him amazed that this is oil paint and not something more. glancing toward her, he stills, his hand half-rigid in hers; there are genuine tears on her cheeks, ones she hasn’t bothered to smooth away.

“i wrote a research paper on this in undergrad,” she answers the unspoken question. “it was a long time ago, i know, but it stayed with me. you spend so much time focusing on things like this, but they’re just out there, you know? they feel celebrity and unreal. they don’t make you feel as though you can be this close to them.”

she takes her hand back, dries her face on the wool of her coat, leaves a little line of brown mascara on the sleeve.

“i just didn’t expect it to feel this real,” she says. “that’s all.”

nodding softly in understanding, he looks back at the painting, wonders what she would’ve learned about it in her research. the title,  _primavera_ , and the artist, botticelli, are the extent of his knowledge of this painting. however, he wonders if he needed to research this painting at all in order to experience it. sometime last year, he read an article on how the only true way to view visual art was to spend five or six hours with the piece; a passing glance was far too short to learn anything truly worthwhile, and even one hour only let you see the most basic contents of the work. after a certain point, you supposedly begin to notice details that you’ve never encountered before, your hyperfocus bringing a new perspective to the piece. he wonders how many hours she spent staring this image down while she sat at her dorm room’s desk, a cup of coffee and a new pair of glasses keeping her company while she sought out the intricacies of renaissance art. while he glances toward her, he watches as she keeps her gaze steady, her breaths deep and meditative, her stature soft alongside him.

he also read an article that stated that if you stared into a first-date’s eyes for four whole minutes without interruption, you would fall in love with that person. though it’s a little late for them, he’s tempted to ask if she wants to try it sometime. however, the timeframe seems too short; four minutes for a person and six hours for a painting have too great a difference. maybe he’ll ask after one of her work trips out-of-town, after they’ve spent a while apart, and he’ll engineer it differently, change it to four silent minutes with just her eyes followed by five hours and fifty-six minutes of learning and relearning every intricacy within her. if she wants to sit here for five more hours, he understands why.

bringing her hand back to his, he weaves his too-big fingers between her bony ones; he would kiss her cheek if he weren’t afraid to interrupt her time with this painting. for now, he’ll bide his time between trying to understand the story behind  _primavera_  and imagining them in a restaurant later this evening, her lipstick staining a cappuccino. he’s practiced saying it over and over again,  _oggi è il suo compleanno;_  for the only time this trip, he hopes that the locals will make like americans so that she’ll end up with a free birthday dessert.

as she runs her thumb against his, a silent  _i’m still here, don’t worry,_  he mentally tallies what they have left: latte, arno, cathedrals.  _cathedrals_ , he relishes; though he’s never been one for religion, their guidebook’s pictures of the cathedrals left him in awe. one line in that section of the book stuck out to him in particular; if you’re in florence, always look up because that’s where the art is, but somehow, he knows without looking that what’s above them is nothing compared to who’s beside him.

though she goes to stand up, he pulls her back down.

“five more minutes,” he insists while she sits once more. 

“okay,” she says, more than happy to oblige.

while the rain pours on outside, he takes a deep breath, the quiet notes of her perfume making him smile. 

“best birthday ever,” she whispers with a light laugh.

silently, he agrees but hardly for the same reasons.


	55. dixième

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> someone tagged a reblog of this saying that their tenth anniversary with their husband was that week and maybe they should get tattoos. it was a surreal moment to read something like that attached to something i'd written. i doubt they ever got tattoos but it was still surreal to read.

he kept time in drawn circles on her back, one second for every loop around her tattoo, then two, three, four. though there were fireworks going off on hourly schedules all around the world, their bedroom was silent, the winter winds outside shaking their little house every few minutes, the rustle of her restless feet against the sheets piquing his senses. in truth, he didn’t want to sleep just yet, but it was past midnight, and he’d already put roses for her into a vase on the kitchen table downstairs, already leaned an anniversary card up against it, and with her warm and naked in his arms, he couldn’t bear to walk down there and pace instead.

“you’re still awake,” she mumbled against his chest.

“you are too,” he said, trailing the nail of his pointer-finger up her bare spine and making her shiver.

“this marks ten years,” she said, her breath hot against his skin. 

“ten. what’s that? leather, wood?”

“tin.”

“there’s foil in the kitchen.”

“mulder.”

“hey, you’re lucky it’s on a holiday because i would forget otherwise.”

she shifted against him, her cheek pressed against his chest and her leg falling in between his; it was a joke, for there were times when he would spout off dates of theirs as though they were bank holidays, ones they counted down to because it meant they didn’t have to go to work.  _hey, scully, it’s november 16th, the anniversary of when you bought me a new tie because you couldn’t stand the one i was wearing at the time. remember that?_

and he could never forget this day in their history, could never forget the soft smile on her lips after he kissed her for the first time. he would never forget how he drove her home, how she hinted that she had some bubbly upstairs for them to celebrate with, how she left what they were celebrating open-ended and somewhat unrelated to the holiday itself. he would never forget how she tentatively kissed him on her couch, how alive she felt in his hands, how her bedsheets smelled intoxicatingly of her. he would never forget her half-embarrassment in the morning, how bashful she could be while wearing his tee-shirt. he would never forget how she looked in the shower at noon, her face pure and bare, her red hair slicked back while he washed it. he would never forget that day, not ten years later, not ever. 

“so, tin,” she said, breathing out. “i’m glad you didn’t remember that one.”

“i’ve heard that some people give diamonds at ten years,” he offered.

at that, she stilled, her interest far greater than it had been a moment ago.

“is that a hint?”

he shrugged. “maybe.”

“i feel as though we should’ve made plans,” she said. 

“to do what? renew our vows?”

“that’s not funny.”

“then what do you mean?”

“something like…i don’t know,” she said. “a nice dinner out, maybe. or a trip into the city. something commemorative.”

“we’re only,” he glanced over at his bedside clock, “forty-five minutes into the year. we’ve got some time.”

“yeah, but all of the restaurants in washington are probably booked for today by now.”

softly, he nodded, fretted that he didn’t ask her if she wanted to do something special. of course, it seemed so suddenly obvious, but when it came to romance, he’d always been atypical, remembering their little anniversaries and taking her on a first date well into their partnership but requiring direction when it came to valentine’s day and social events. bringing his fingers back down her spine, he returned to her tattoo, traced it once more.

“have you ever thought about getting another one?” he asked.

“not really,” she said. “i haven’t felt the need since.”

“but you felt the need with this one.”

sighing, she closed her eyes; somehow, this topic was never one that they could resolve. 

“i wanted control. i wanted something that only i could want for myself,” she explained. “you know that.”

“yes,” he said, “but would it be something you’re willing to share?”

“i don’t know what you mean.”

he paused, unable to find a way to explain this that wouldn’t leave her fuming or at least aghast. luckily, she sobered, showing him that she understood.

“you want us to get matching ones.”

“it’s just an idea.”

“a ridiculous one.”

“you said you wanted something commemorative.”

“i said i wanted to go out to dinner.”

“what do you think?” he mused. “we could go traditional. tally marks? roman numerals? what about a little design?”

“mulder.”

“i can call le diplomate in the morning and see if we can make a reservation.”

“much better.”

but there was something about the idea that stuck with her while she softly smiled at the dozen roses he left for her on the kitchen table, while she opened the gold-set diamond earrings he’d bought her, while she dressed in that tantalizing black dress, a long-sleeved one with a plunging back that made him want to kiss each of her exposed vertebrae, so now, they’re a few doors down from the restaurant, french food waiting while she moves one sleeve off of her shoulder.

“ten years, huh?”

their tattoo artist is in his sixties, his balding head a far cry from his long and braided white beard; he wears a jean-vest over an undershirt as though it isn’t january in the north. from mulder’s days in profiling, he’s pretty sure this guy owns at least one motorcycle. 

“marriage is tough, ain’t it?” he asks. “nice thing you’re doing here, though. making it permanent not once, but twice!”

never one for needles, mulder keeps his eyes away while the artist - rick, his name is - brings the rotary to scully’s shoulder. they went for a simple design, the roman numeral for ten in black ink on the backs of their left shoulders. though they both know it’s impulsive, and though the sound that machine has mulder wincing, he knows without a doubt that he wants this. 

he couldn’t believe it when they were midway to the city and suddenly she asked if he really meant that he wanted them to get matching ones, but then again, she’s always doubted his better ideas. standing up, he moves around to the other side of her, out of sight of the needle. he pulls a stool down so that he can sit in front of her and face her.

“does it hurt?” he asks.

“not really,” she says, but her voice is a bit higher than usually, her knees pushed closely together, her chin raised. “it’s an interesting sensation.”

“a lot of people like it,” rick supplies with a laugh. “that’s how i ended up with all of mine, and that’s the only reason my missus approves of this here place.”

looking around, mulder sees plenty of awards on the walls, a  _best design_ here and there, and though the place overall is tidy and clean, the walls are lined with more stickers than he can imagine, some for bands and others for different salons. he figures that this place is half headbangers heaven, half motorcycle gang hangout. though it’s unremarkably far from their aesthetic, he likes it.

he hears her breath hitch; looking back at her, he watches her eyes close, and in an instant, he stills, for he knows that face. or, rather, he knows that face from a different angle, from when his head is between her legs, from when his hand is dipping below the waistband of her skirt. as she opens her eyes, he can see rouge embarrassment on her cheeks; she’s transparent, and they both know it. however, rick carries on as though nothing has happened, so mulder rests a hand on her knee, the gesture a silent  _i’m glad to know this about you, and your secret’s safe with me._

“now all i have to do is wrap it,” rick says, the sound of the needle going silent. “you ever gotten one of these before?”

“i have. he hasn’t,” scully answers, her coming-down voice thick and evident. mulder’s never going to forget this.

“good, good,” rick says. “you know the drill then. keep it on for twenty-four hours, then wash the skin with mild soap and just your fingers. or each other’s given the spot these are in, right?”

by the time rick’s done with scully, mulder’s heart is in his chest, so when they swap seats, scully leaves her hand on his leg, the gesture soft and unifying.

“you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” she says quietly, but he wants to, most definitely wants to. 

“hey, i’m making a commitment here,” he says. “i don’t plan on backing out anytime soon.”

“most people just go for a ring.”

“my, miss scully, was that a hint you just dropped?”

“i’m just saying.”

“well, we aren’t  _most people,_ ” he says, but his synapses are firing off names of all the places in the city where he can buy her a ring. he won’t go for one today, but he would be a joke of a man if he didn’t buy one for a woman who will willingly mark their ten years on her body. at this point, a ring is a just a formality; the commitment is clear, and he wouldn’t mind a tax break.

once rick starts on him, mulder quiets, the sensation different from what he expected. it’s like a sunburn, he figures, but a steady and moving version of one. in scouts, he once ended up with stinging nettles; it feels more like those than it does like the flu shot sensation he figured it would be. she traces her thumb over his wrist, and all the while, he tries to figure out how she found this sensation erotic. though it’s not a terrible sensation, he’s happy when the rotary turns off, when rick starts to wrap his back.

“you two got any big plans for year ten?” rick asks as he finishes off on mulder, as mulder pulls his shirt and suit-jacket back on. 

“we’re going out for french food,” scully supplies.

“wow, that big!” rick laughs. “you two have fun. and be sure to come back here when you reach twenty so that i can put another  _x_  on both of you.”

and as they walk into the restaurant, he can’t stop thinking about the burning sensation on his back, about how she has the same one beneath the sleeve of her dress. while the hostess shows them to their copper-and-red table, he imagines holding her like he did last night, that little black mark a constant reminder of their shared history. as she orders a glass of wine - he’s driving - he wonders what it’ll be like to be one of few people, maybe even the only person, who know the meaning behind this new tattoo of hers. she orders oysters while he watches a piece of her hair fall over the creamy skin of her neck, and staring down at her hands while they grip the menu, he makes a mental tally of all the places where he could buy her a ring. maybe he’ll ask her mother for an heirloom. regardlessly, she’ll have one before this time next year.

walking back to where she parked while the taste of chocolate pot de crème is on his lips, she asks, “where do you think we’ll be in ten years?”

“is this a relationship test or just a question?”

“i don’t like that you have to ask that.”

he laughs, and luckily, she’s smiling and not upset. the sidewalk’s a bit icy, so he keeps his open hand near the small of her back in case she slips. ten more years, he thinks. they’ll be together; he knows that for sure. she’ll have a ring; he knows that too. however, he’s always been the opposite of her, marveling at the unknown instead of fearing it. somehow, the street is vacant, warm colors from shops and restaurants lighting their way; some of the trees in a park across the street are still strung with christmas lights. he doesn’t like to fixate on what he can’t control, prefers to say in the moment and to focus on what’s around him rather than on what is not.

by the time they reach her car, he has yet to answer the question, but she seems to have forgotten it or at least to have pushed it away. while she leans against the backdoors, he goes to open the passenger door for her but hesitates.

“what?” she asks, peeking over to see if something’s wrong.

standing there in her long coat, her hands dipped in her pockets to keep warm, her hair bright and her eyes brighter, he can picture her in ten years, more beautiful lines forming on her face but her eyes still the same blue. he hopes she’ll dye her hair to keep the greys away not because he doesn’t want to see her go grey but because he never wants to part with the red. he hopes they’ll still be in the same house, the place worn-in like an old and overwashed pair of jeans. maybe they’ll get a dog, or maybe they’ll add on another room, or maybe everything will be exactly the same, books on her nightstand and a glass of water on his, but no matter how he pictures his future, she’s there.

he could say that in words, but he’s terrible with words, so instead, he snakes his arm around to the small of her back and pulls her into a kiss, one that takes her by such surprise that she lets out a noise in mild exasperation. momentarily, he laughs, then closes his eyes as she eases against him. in ten years, she’ll still fit into his arms like this; in ten years, she’ll still kiss him this way, as though he tastes better than the profiteroles they shared after dinner. in ten years, they’ll each ink another  _x_ , and if that’s the only thing that changes about them, or if that’s just one of many things that change about them, he’ll be happy.

and in ten years, she’ll have a ring. he knows that for sure.


	56. cioppino

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this makes me cringe even without reading through it again. and also i fucking hate cioppino and have absolutely no clue why i would write about it in a romantic context.

if there’s anything he’s sure of, it’s that ina garten could kick his ass, and once he ended up in a deranged and bloodied heap on her kitchen floor, she would return to stirring a sauce and insisting that if you can’t find cardamom pods shipped in from some foreign and fancy estate, then store-bought are fine. all mulder wanted was to make a nice dinner, one complete with caprese salad and candles, but now, his shirt is stained with tomato, or maybe there’s some blood mixed in there too. after all, he cut his hand while slicing the fennel.

bruschetta, mozzarella, he’s spent all day on this, sifted through recipe after recipe in hope of finding the perfect dinner. as the winter settled in for the season, he watched snow blanket their property, figured he wouldn’t see grass again until late february. when she goes to work now, she wears that ridiculous coat, a puffy red one that reaches past her knees and is adorned with a faux fur hood, a coat she only bought because it was heartily marked down at l.l. bean; it’s a size too big as well, swallowing her whole whenever she zips it up. because of the snow, she’s been craving warmth in every way she can, from food to proximity to outerwear, so for a night like tonight, he needs to cook all things italian, the appetizers neutral, the main course warm and fiery. of course, he’s great at cooking most italian dishes, can whip up a shrimp scampi with his eyes closed, but this dish is a far cry from his usual pastas.

the cioppino, the task at hand, he needs to focus on that. he should’ve chosen a winter dish instead, maybe that ham and split pea soup that she likes, but it wouldn’t be fancy enough for tonight. reading over ina’s ornate recipe, he frets at how many ingredients he needed, at how elaborate this dish is. if anything, he should’ve cowered away in fear at the sight of  _one pound mussels, scrubbed and de-bearded._  how the hell was he supposed to de-beard a mussel? how was he to know that mussels even have beards in the first place?

the flourless chocolate cake is settling in the fridge; the homemade gelato from that place she loves in town is milling about in the freezer; he baked fresh bread this morning, iced a bottle of sparkling cider just in case. now, he simply needs the cioppino to cooperate, and then, the night will be set, all of his variables taken care of; after that, all he needs to do is wait for her response.

he got the ring three days ago, claimed he was borrowing her car so that he could help an old lady from the library shovel her driveway. 

“should i be worried about muriel’s intentions with you?” scully quipped when he returned home many hours later that evening, his heartbeat on edge from the infinite weight of the box in his pocket. 

“in case you’ve forgotten,” he threw back, “i’m a desirable man, scully.”

and then she tugged him closer and kissed him without reservations, and it took all the willpower he had not to pull the box out and ask her right then. the next morning, it took all the willpower he had not to ask her before she left for work. the evening after that, it took all the willpower he had not to ask her while they climbed into bed together, a pair of sheep-printed wool socks on her feet because she felt chilly. this morning, he barely let her leave for the day without asking, so as soon as her car left the driveway, as soon as she was out of sight, he started searching for recipes. 

 _it’s going to be the perfect evening,_  he swears as the stew sputters up more red broth. he may curse ina garten until his dying day, but tonight is going to be perfect. 

the sun’s starting to set, so adds the clams, shrimp, and de-bearded mussels - thank goodness for online tutorials - to the pot, covers it up just as she walks in the door. looking down at his shirt, he freezes; by now, he was supposed to have the bruschetta and caprese out on the table, each drizzled with the balsamic glaze he searched three separate stores in order to find. while she unzips that ridiculous coat, he tries to figure out if he could possibly save the presentation. 

“what happened to you?”

 _no,_  he thinks. he can’t. 

she eyes him up and down, her brow furrowing at the red on his shirt. 

meeting her eyes, he blanks, says, “i made dinner.”

“did you make dinner, or did dinner make you?”

though it’s a lighthearted joke, the comment almost feels cutting, like ina garten is cackling in his direction from whichever tuscan kitchen she’s in now. 

“hold on,” he says, watching the pot and then going to the fridge. “i need three more minutes, and then, it’ll be on the table.”

hanging her coat on their rack, she gives him a look, says, “there’s no need to rush.”

but there is a need to rush because if he doesn’t plate this soon, then they won’t get to dinner before he blurts out the question to her. should he even say it out loud? he became so accustomed to seeming nonchalant about his attraction to her, their first six or seven years together proving to be great practice in that sport, that he wonders if she expects either a grand but out-of-character speech or a  _here, catch_  followed by the ring-box being chucked at her face. 

“i made appetizers,” he stutters.

“okay,” she says, unsure. 

the oven’s still warm, so he pops the bread back in to warm up. taking the caprese and bruschetta from the fridge, he sets those plates down on the made dinner-table, takes the lighter out of its kitchen-drawer so that he can light the candles. as a finishing touch, he drizzles that glaze over the appetizers while she looks on in mild horror, unsure as to why he’s going all-out for tonight.  _c’mon, scully, just go along with it,_  he thinks while he stains his shirt once more with the glaze. 

he’s not nervous about whether or not she’ll say yes; he’s terrified that something in the way he asks won’t fulfill any girlhood fantasies of hers, that she won’t want to tell her mother and her friends about this night, that she’ll be happy about this but ultimately unimpressed with its execution. he should’ve just called a restaurant, surprised her there, made it all a public spectacle, or maybe he should’ve taken her to france for a weekend and done it there. do they have enough money for france? maybe, he thinks, but if he doesn’t ask tonight, he feels he may spontaneously combust, all scientific explanations be damned. he figures even carl sagan would agree; the one thing that could transcend science and make the impossible possible would be pure, unadulterated, uncouth, unceasing, deep and true love, so if his bones suddenly turn to cartilage, if his left leg ends up mysteriously transported to missouri tonight, he’ll understand why even if she’ll never believe it.

“what brought on this sudden need for a feast?” she asks as she sits down, picks up a piece of bruschetta. “it’s only tuesday.”

“oh, you know,” he downplayed as he stirred the stew. “i saw a recipe that i wanted to try.”

“huh.”

she takes a bite while he sets the flounder on top of the stew, sets the lid back on. taking the bread out of the oven, he sets its baking sheet on the counter, searches for a knife.

“did you finish that book?” she asks after she swallows. “you made me all excited to start it. i’ve been thinking of it all day.”

“oh,” he says, remembering how he raved about the author of his current read last night in a desperate attempt to talk about anything other than the box that he’d slid into his bedside-table’s drawer just in case. “right.”

setting the bread on a cutting board, he slices six pieces, sets them in a bread-basket. she takes another piece of bruschetta, lifts her usual eyebrow.

“mulder.”

“what?”

“the book,” she repeats. “did you finish it?”

“oh,” he echoes. “no.”

“okay,” she says, takes another bite. “this is delicious.”

“good,” he says, fixating on the countless hours he’s spent in the kitchen today. 

checking on the fish, he sees that it’s flaking, so he turns off the stove, excuses himself for the moment.

“i need to change, and then, we can eat,” he explains while he heads upstairs. 

leaving her in his wake, she gives an unnerved, “okay?”

upstairs, he slips into a nicer pair of pants, fancier than a pair of jeans but still short of business-casual. if he puts on anything other than a flannel, she’ll question why, so he dresses in a green-plaid one, one she’s restitched a few times. he ducks into the bathroom, runs the tap, rubs cold water over his face; looking his reflection in the eyes, he repeats  _it’ll all be fine_  in his mind while he takes deep breaths. heading back to the stairs, he stops short. 

though he could remember to buy each and every ingredient for the cioppino, though he could sear scallops with ease, though he managed to finish ina’s elaborate and mysterious recipe without obvious failure, he nearly forgot the ring that began this whole debacle. heading back into the bedroom, he pulls the box from his nightstand, pockets it for now.

he returns while she’s on her third piece of bruschetta, so from behind her, he smiles. he can remember how they went to a riverside restaurant in the city last summer, how she wore a white linen sundress, how she left her hair carefree and unstyled while they ordered gazpacho for lunch; to start, they had calamari and bruschetta, and because of how she eyed the fifth piece of bread, he insisted he was full even though he wasn’t, and in the end, it was worthwhile just to see her eyes close in pleasure as she took a bite, to watch as a little bit of tomato juice dribbled down her chin. 

“hey, leave some for me,” he says, starting to sound more like himself again.

sitting down alongside her - they were never fond of sitting across from each other at the dinner-table - he picks up his little plate for appetizers, scoops caprese onto it.

“seriously, mulder,” she says as she does the same, “what prompted this?”

he shrugs, tries to downplay how he feels even though the ring weighs heavily in his pocket. 

“i was in the mood for cioppino.”

“for mussels, scallops, and white fish.”

“yeah.”

“in the middle of winter.”

“well, yeah.”

as she chews a piece of mozzarella, she sighs in pleasure. of course, he went all-out for tonight, bought the expensive stuff from the italian market in town. slathered in high-end olive oil, he knows this dish is going to be good before he even tastes it, so once he tastes it, his nerves fade away; even if tonight goes all wrong, even if they end up with food poisoning from his lackluster mussel de-bearding, they’ll have this taste to remember fondly.

“this is fantastic,” she says, then takes a sip from the glass of water he set for her. “god, i needed this. i had the worst day.”

for once, he’s glad to hear that. 

“really?” he inquires, trying to keep his tone from sounding smug; he’s happy that he chose today.

“icy roads, car accidents, you name it.” she has fresh basil stuck in her teeth. “i was on my feet all day.”

“i’m sorry to hear that,” he says.

tentatively, he looks at the last piece of bruschetta, offers it to her with a glance, but she shakes her head, says, “i’ve had four already.”

placing the slice on his plate, he watches as she finishes off the caprese, her lips held in an elegant and quiet smile as she does so. he takes their plates, sets them in the sink, returns for their bowls so that he can fill each one with stew. 

“serving me at the table, making me a fancy dinner?” she says with a light laugh. “if you wanted to tell me you love me, you could’ve just called.”

at that, he laughs awkwardly, dribbles a bit of stew onto his pants. before he returns to the table, he takes the cake out of the fridge, settles it into the oven to warm up. while she eyes him, he sets the bread-basket down on the table, then returns with their two bowls.

“what’s that?” she asks, nodding toward the oven.

“a cake.”

“a cake?”

“yeah, a cake.”

“why did you make a cake?”

he shrugs.

“i was in the mood for cake.”

she bites her lip, her brow furrowing.

“huh.”

he sets her bowl down in front of her, and after he returns to his seat, he glances over at her, sees a wide smile on her lips.

“you made cioppino,” she says, her voice sounding bittersweet.

“do you like cioppino?” he asks casually as he takes a piece of focaccia out of the basket. 

“i love cioppino,” she says not so much to him as she does to the stew itself, eying it as though it’s a long-lost friend.

“you never told me that,” he says.

after he found the recipe, he called her mother, his voice a frazzled  _hey, does she like shellfish? i know that i should know this, but i don’t_  while maggie giggled on in the background. 

“from when i was five to when i was eight or nine,” she explains, “one of the mothers on the base where we lived made the most exquisite cioppino. each christmas eve during our time there, she would have us over for dinner, and they were those really traditional italians, you know? seven fishes in the meals from christmas eve until christmas day and everything, so she made cioppino, exhausted fish from that list with ease, and it was always my favorite dish of the dinner. bill can’t eat shellfish, so my mother refused to cook it for us all, and i guess i just never tried to make it myself. i haven’t had it in years.”

“oh,” he says, trying not to seem as though he heard the same - albeit less decorated - story from maggie this morning.

“i’m really glad you made it.”

then, she picks up her spoon, and his heart pounds; somehow, this is the moment of truth even though the ring is still out of sight. while she brings clams, broth, and fennel to her lips, he dares not breathe, stares her down while she slips the spoon into her mouth. chewing, she covers her mouth with two fingers, her eyes closing as she does so, her expression unreadable.

swallowing, she says, “this is absolutely delicious.”

hours upon hours of anxiety fading away, he tears off a corner of his bread, dips it into the stew; so far, this is going as well as it could possibly go, so they eat in silence, his mind filled with thankfulness for ina garten and her artillery of italian recipes. by the time she reaches the bottom of her bowl, she scrapes out the remnants of the broth with a piece of bread, unabashedly licking her fingers as she does so.

“do you want seconds?” he asks. 

“no, i’m stuffed,” she says, “but please tell me there are leftovers.”

“i doubled the recipe.”

“good,” she says with a nod of confirmation. taking the napkin off of her lap, she dabs at the bit of red broth left on her cheek, lets him take her bowl and place it in the sink. 

pulling the chocolate cake out of the oven, he finds the dessert warm and fragrant, brings the cake, along with a cake-knife, over to the table. while she stares down at the thirty-dollars’ worth of high-end cocoa, he grabs the gelato from the freezer, gets a scoop as well.

“what do you want?” she asks out of the blue.

“what?”

“the bruschetta, the cioppino, the gelato,” she explains. “one’s a treat, two are an apology, three are when you want something.”

“i don’t understand.”

“it’s alright if that’s what you’re getting at,” she shrugs. “if you want to jet off to mexico in search of that goat-sucker or something, go ahead. the cioppino convinced me well enough. you have my permission for whatever you’re looking to do.”

“i’m not looking chase down a goat-sucker,” he says uncomfortably while he sits alongside her, while he cuts her a slice of cake.

“i can’t eat a whole slice by myself,” she changes the subject as he plates the slice. “split it with me.”

“okay,” he says, reaching over for the gelato and dropping a hearty scoop alongside the cake. 

while the vanilla melts alongside the chocolate, she dips her spoon in, the cake luscious and moist, the gelato creamy and sweet. as he takes a bite, he thinks the cake may be a bit burnt, but she seems not to think so, so he takes another spoonful, licks every last bit of chocolate away. by the time her spoon is scraping up the last remnants of cake, he falls back against his chair, his stomach more than full, his body spent, his nerves shot; of course, the dinner went off without the hitch, but the whole purpose behind the dinner will now be groggy and uncomfortable as he tests how far his pants can stretch. 

“that was divine,” she says, licking the last remnants off of her spoon. “thank you.”

“anytime,” he says, though if she asks him to do this again sometime soon, he’ll need at least a day’s worth of preparation; that  _anytime_  has some fine print.

then, she stands, goes to take the plate and spoons, but before she can go, he reaches for her hip, pulls her back with a horrified look.

“what are you doing?” he asks.

she shrugs. “i’m going to start on the dishes.”

he shakes his head, insists, “you can’t wash the dishes.”

“why not?” she asks. “after all, you cooked.”

“i….”

he trails off, unsure of what to say, so she sets the dishware down, returns to her seat. leaning toward him, she waits for an answer, her eyes keen on him while he wants to cower away.

how exactly is he supposed to ask this? they’re already spending the rest of their lives together; he doesn’t need to ask that, so what should he ask instead?

“i got you an early birthday present,” he says, taking the box out of his pocket and pressing it toward her.

“really?” she asks, a soft smile on her lips as she runs her fingers over the black velvet of the box. “you shouldn’t have.”

“well,” he says, doesn’t finish that sentence.

while she ogles mindlessly over the box, he feels his heart pound, the anticipation making him want to rip the box from her hands, take the ring out, and shove it in her face. maybe throwing the box at her had been a better idea.

“was this what you were out doing instead of shoveling muriel’s driveway?” she asks, her tone casual and warm; she hasn’t a clue what’s in the box, doesn’t understand its meaning yet.

“yeah,” he says, folding his hands in his lap while she smiles idly at him.

then - thank goodness - she slips the box open, expects a bracelet or a pair of earrings but sobers as she sees the ring. it’s a gold band with a single-carat diamond, something simple and timeless; he knows she prefers gold to silver. as she stares down at it, his heart-rate doubles. either she doesn’t like it, or she doesn’t want it, or it’s too big, or it’s too small, or she wasn’t looking for this, or she never wants to get married, but if they never get married, he doesn’t mind that, not at all. there’s commitment, and they both know they’re committed, and she kept saying she wanted a ring, but maybe she wanted a ring and not  _a ring_. maybe she wanted something simpler, just half-assed wedding bands without a wedding, or maybe a post-it note like they had on that show she always complains about but watches anyway. he did this all wrong, should’ve brought her with him to the jeweler’s, should’ve let her pick one out herself, should’ve asked first if this was what she really wanted, should’ve-

with surprise, he falls back in his chair, for she’s over him in seconds, her arms engulfing his body, her weight haphazardly on his lap. she holds him there, one of her hands on his shoulder and the other warm against his hair; he steadies his arms around her, her body curling into him as though it’s always belonged right there, the ring sitting in its box on the table and sparkling against the candlelight. softly, he closes his eyes, keeps time with the sounds of her slow and steady breaths against him, breathes in the scent of hospitals and sweat and her, something intrinsically her, while he buries his face in her neck. 

while she runs her fingers through his hair, she doesn’t need to say her answer aloud; he already knows. 


	57. things you said as you kissed me goodnight

**[how-i-met-your-mulder](https://how-i-met-your-mulder.tumblr.com/) said:** 46? :)

_46: things you said when you kissed me goodnight_

* * *

your coat is tightly buttoned, but for the first time this season, you’re cold.

her apartment building is right here - you somehow managed to park on the street right in front of it, silently thanked whatever mathematical models the universe operates under for allowing you an easy chance to open the passenger’s side door for her and to offer to walk her up - and as you both step inside, you find that it isn’t much warmer in here than the january chill outside. of course, she takes the stairs, so you trail her while neighbors of hers who you’ve passed more times than you want to count eye you with unease. apparently, they can smell her perfume as easily as you can, can tell what you’ve both been up to, but you find pleasure in that they probably don’t realize that her lipstick is new, not a shade she ever wore to work. 

it was dinner, just dinner, and though you would’ve brought flowers if you’d known, you’d been clueless to the fact that she expected this to be a date until you met her at this very door and saw the dress she was wearing, something simple but one that made the insistent statement  _please notice that i am not a pantsuit_. thankfully, you’d caught on, threw in some manners that made her raise an eyebrow at you, covered the bill though she gave you a look of  _we’ve known each other long enough to drop the pleasantries, mulder._

all night, she held a confusing air of both casual comfort and a want to be wooed, and you’re still trying to understand what that meant. technically speaking, this was your first date together, but it’s not what you wish to remember as your first date with dana scully. no, you want to remember sometime better, like when you both got eggs and toast at a diner in the middle of the night and she sneakily copped a piece of your bacon, like when she sat with you in the hospital a few days after her father’s funeral. however, she’s traditional, and she likes firsts, likes stories she can tell her mother, likes flowers on a first date and a handshake at her door. though you enjoy the nontraditional, savor the stranger and more cinematic moments of life, you want to give her those traditional and linear firsts nonetheless.

so you reach out a too-steady hand toward hers. it’s a wednesday evening, and she only asked if you wanted to get dinner together at lunchtime today. though her lipstick is new, the rest of her makeup is what she had on at work. absentmindedly, you look down at her dress - sleek and black and long-sleeved, her dark coat framing it and showing off the creamy color of her legs - and wonder what her dry cleaning bill must be. 

“what are you doing?” she asks, the door unlocked, her hand on the handle.

“i’m…shaking your hand,” you stammer, and it’s embarrassing, and all of tonight has been embarrassing, and though you thought kissing her last week was a good idea, though the peck on her lips at midnight was both a cinematic moment and a story she could tell her mother, you’re not sure you can follow through with the whirlwind romance she deserves. though you’re good with a bat, you sure as hell can’t run the bases.

“okay,” she obliges, gives you her unmanicured fingers, shakes in the committed and strong but ultimately friendly way a doctor would, takes her hand back while she stares up at you.

“i’m sorry about tonight,” you say.

“what?” she asks, her brows furrowing.

“i didn’t…realize.” you’re embarrassing yourself, praying your cheeks don’t show it. “i thought this was a casual invitation. i’m sorry.”

“what’s that supposed to mean?”

you’re making sense; that’s the one thing you’re sure of, so why doesn’t she understand? now, she seems concerned, and,  _shit_ , you’ve messed up. she thinks that you  _wanted_  this to be casual, that you just want to be her friend, and-

she tugs on your tie, pulls you forward, stands on tiptoe as she kisses you, her mouth warm and minty - did she pop a mint in the car when you weren’t looking? had she wanted to kiss you before now? - and her eyes closing as she leans against you. with your hands chastely on her hips, you kiss her back, and she feels so right against you, heights be damned; her face, her legs, her arms, they all fit with yours, and though you expected there to be a firework fanfare in your head the next time this happened, all you feel is warm, your mind soft and your lungs full. 

it ends before you want it to end, but in her defense, she could kiss you for the rest of both of your lives, and you’d still want more. she’s not addictive, doesn’t constantly call you back to her, but after too long away, you feel her absence heavily like crops who miss the rain; she supplements you in a way you’ll never be able to replicate or replace, calms you down when you’re overwhelmed, forces you to be a better man. by feel alone, you know that her lipstick, all red and glass-marring, is stuck on your mouth, and you probably won’t wash it off until morning. as she brushes her hands down your chest, fixes your shirt-buttons and tie, she says, “i had fun tonight.”

“that was a nice way of showing me,” you say, and she laughs, and her laugh is brilliant, and on second thought, maybe she  _is_ addictive because you know that, as soon as you get back into your car tonight, you’re going to wish for more of her even though you’ll see her tomorrow at work anyway.

“goodnight, mulder,” she says, and out of courtesy, you open the unlocked door for her, don’t mind the look of incredulity she gives you because of the action. 

“goodnight, scully,” you say as she flicks the hallway-light on, as you slowly shut her apartment’s door.

while you walk down the stairs in her building, you pass that elderly couple who love scully - despite her multiple run-ins with murderers, scully’s quiet and occasionally bakes for them, so as far as neighbors go, she’s great - and they stare at you with equal parts horror and shock, but all you can do is smile your half-lipsticked smile because, of all people, dana scully wants you, and though you live in a world of phenomena, this must be your most unexplainable mystery.

next time, you’ll bring flowers. tonight, you figure, was just fine without them.


	58. the happiest we ever were

**[xgirl88](https://xgirl88.tumblr.com/) said:** 19 please :)

_19: things you said when we were the happiest we ever were_

* * *

so far, she managed to find a mattress, bedsheets, and a pizza, but beyond that, the house is barren, not even a refrigerator in the ancient kitchen downstairs. when she toured the place, she found it off, like a haunted house in a movie, but upon coming inside, she saw potential, just a cleaning away from being a home. she likes that it’s far away from everyone else, that their nearest neighbors farm and that trick-or-treaters would have to drive miles out of their way if they cared beg for candy at this house. she likes the long field beyond them, the locking gate driveway. she likes that, in theory, they could build a barn and raise horses here if they were that kind of couple. she likes the fireplace downstairs, one in remarkable shape given the house’s age. most of all, she likes that they can stop running.

next week, she has an interview with a hospital, but if that doesn’t work out, she’ll pursue private practices, maybe even find a natural medicine clinic or two where she can apply; all she asks is that she ends up in the medical field, starts that part of her life. though she always saw life as a series of linear accomplishments, she’s beginning to understand that life extends in multiple dimensions - “ _like how the mantis shrimp sees, scully_ ,” she hears him say in her head - and that there will, in fact, be places that want her. then again, even if the medical community rejects her outright, she’ll find something else, something drastically different but exciting nonetheless. maybe she’ll drive a forklift, or maybe she’ll work in one of those newfangled cell phone stores, or maybe she’ll nanny. no matter what happens, she won’t mind, for she has a home, and she has him, and beyond those, she doesn’t need much.

oh, and a lamp, a single lamp on loan from her mother’s house, that’s the last piece of furniture they have. in the upstairs bedroom, they have the made-up mattress pressed into a corner, the lamp upright next to it; next to the bed, the pizza box sits, four pieces taken out of the half basil-and-garlic, half pepperoni. he folds a pepperoni piece in half like he always does, takes a hearty bite from where he sits cross-legged next to the mattress; she sprawls out over the white duvet, her sore muscles finally finding some ease.

“i like it,” he says through a mouthful; she stares up at the ceiling, her eyes softly transfixed on how white and unmoving such a thing can be. while they travelled, she stole and read a copy of  _american gods,_  could remember how shadow kept seeing little things that made him remember he was no longer in prison; the house keys, the car she bought in her own name using her own bank card, being able to order a pizza over the phone, the heady silence only known as  _home_ , they all came back to her with a frightening familiarity, and the comfort of it was like a stiff drink, shocking at first but then relaxing, soft, and comfortable. “quaint. in a good way, though. familial. warm.”

she quirks a lip, her belly full of something she used to rarely indulge. out here, she hopes she gains weight in a good way, hopes she ends up eating organic and homegrown foods that make her look less skeletal; she hopes she can still cook, that they’ll have lavish meals together, each finished off with decadent desserts she’ll be able to taste when he kisses her later. though she knows it’s all brain chemistry, that this feeling is merely the result of handing over money and calling a place your own, she relishes in the endlessness of it all, in the possibilities around her. though they don’t have their life together figured out yet, they have a home, and she has an interview. as he swallows, she smiles; they have food, water, clothing, and shelter, and beyond that, she doesn’t care what happens, for she knows they’ll be happy.

“you’re quiet tonight,” he quips as he closes the box, as he wipes his hands on a napkin and then tosses it aside. for now, she won’t yell about the mess. while he crawls over to her, lies face-down so that his torso is on the mattress though his hips and legs dangle off, he folds his arms, rests his chin on an elbow as he faces her. “what’s up?”

leaning her head toward him, she looks at him, genuinely looks. he shaved his beard in the bathroom while she was out picking up dinner, and though his hair is still too long, she almost wants to keep it that way, loves to push it behind his ears each time she kisses him. though she knows he can’t possibly be, he looks younger, like the man she met one fateful day in a basement office. he’s tanned and muscular, his tee-shirt just a bit too tight in a way she won’t comment on for fear that he’ll buy the next size up. most of all, he gazes at her with those big blue eyes of his, and though it’s been years, though he’s seen every ugly part of her, he still looks at her with amazement.

she can remember the first time he watched her orgasm, can remember the way her stared at her; at the moment, she was flustered, felt embarrassed for reasons she couldn’t understand, but then, he kissed her amongst her aftershocks, brought a surprising fervor to her lips, and from then on, she understood the look. though she had watched him witness extraterrestrial - or so he thought - events, and though she had seen his reaction to the most unfathomable phenomena, he wore the deepest look of amazement only for her, never for anything else. it makes her want to cry, or sing, or curl up in his arms and never leave there.

she takes a breath, says, “i’m just happy to be here.”

“no doubts?” he asks, genuinely asks. 

“no, none at all,” she says, shaking her head against the mattress. 

she leans up onto her side so that she can face him, so that she’s level with him. softly, he brings a greasy thumb to her bottom lip, strokes there while their noses are eskimo-kiss close. as she closes her eyes, he rests his thumb at the corner of her mouth; he’s been trying something new, taking everything more slowly, savoring every bit of her, and it’s agonizing, and it’s obnoxious, and she absolutely loves it.

as he kisses her, she tastes basil and garlic, marinara and warmth; she reaches for whichever part of him she can reach, figures with closed eyes that she’s grabbed his shoulder, pulls him closer while he hesitates out of not doubt but ease.  _wait, and i’ll come to you_ , this says, and she almost wants to groan in frustration, to tell him to quit the  _slow and steady_  act, but soon enough, both of her shoulders are back on the mattress while he presses down against her, his kisses deep and slow, her hands tracing the muscles beneath his too-tight shirt.

“welcome home,” he whispers to her.

she can feel elation even in her toes.


	59. in the woods

he sets a steaming mug on the coffee-table beside her, the scent of hot chocolate curling her lips up. last night, he made them rib-eyes with spinach and mashed potatoes, used that ridiculously expensive grass-fed butter and everything; she picks up the mug, takes a creamy sip, and decides that she can summarize this weekend with the word  _rich_. though they only have two space-heaters in this little cabin, the room feels cozy nonetheless. she lounges on the couch,  _the secret history_  on her pajamaed lap, her legs up on the cushions while he sits down at her feet, lifts her toes up onto his lap. she sets the mug back down, returns to her words while he takes one of her wool socks into his hands and rubs his thumb along her arch.  _yes_ , she thinks; rich is the correct term.

though she’s unsure as to whose cabin this is, she knows it belongs to an old friend of mulder’s, some guy whose wife or daughter or other relative had been abducted, and due to mulder’s brash heroism - she stopped listening as soon as he began the story, for she figured it wouldn’t be true or that the true version would be far less exhilarating than mulder’s rendition - and she doesn’t want to question the ownership, not when it’s ever-so-softly snowing outside and not while their little space of the adirondacks is so blissfully, wonderfully quiet. according to the true locals, this is off-season, and they’re in a portion of the state that’s been owned by a specific family for years; the lake water, apparently, is safe to drink though she made sure mulder boiled it anyway. nonetheless, it’s just them and the neighboring cabin’s occupants out here for the weekend, the nearest paved road being thirty miles away, the closest gas station probably thirty-five. 

“are we staying in today?” he asks as he rubs her feet, still tired from their past week of nonstop paperwork. to skinner on friday, mulder claimed that he would have a twenty-four hour virus starting on that coming monday, a lie that skinner grinned and bore; as for her excuse to spend the weekend away, she was registered to attend a conference in alexandria that she’d intended to attend though mulder’s mentioned it hundreds of times that, technically speaking, they’re both playing hooky. yesterday, they spent the morning snowshoeing the property and hiking the short path down to the frozen-over lake, but today, life sounds best when her book, a blanket, and mulder are involved.

glancing out the window, she watches as an evergreen folds heavily beneath the falling snow; outside, the world is silent but full of change, the gravity shifting as it does with every storm. to herself, she wonders if they might end up snowed in and finds she doesn’t mind that prospect. 

“i’d like to,” she says as he switches to her other foot. 

of course, she’d been resistant at his first mention of a weekend like this, one planned out and researched and intended for - she nearly cringes at the word - romance.

“just wait for a holiday weekend instead,” she insisted as they sat together in the basement office, as she flicked through some new file, as she remained friendly but indifferent toward him in the way she’d mastered at work over the years. though their relationship had changed drastically - in a good way, in the best of ways - since he kissed her on the first, she still needed to be professional. “i’d rather not take time off.”

“but it  _is_  a holiday weekend,” he gave softly, his eyes puppying and his gaze silently hurt. 

“mulder, martin luther king day is in january, not february.”

“yeah, i know that.”

“then what holiday are you talking about?”

and though she knew that their territory since he kissed her on the first was uncharted, and though she knew that her priorities didn’t tend toward hallmark holidays, and though she knew better than to think he would overlook such a thing, she stared incredulously at him, couldn’t remember any february holiday other than her birthday though even that one was hardly worth celebrating.

“that’s the weekend of valentine’s day,” he explained, his eyes downcast, his ribs still as he waited for the inevitable rejection. “the fourteenth’s that monday.”

and now, she’s playing hooky for the first time in her career, and she’s wearing his thermal shirt, and he made her belgian waffles for breakfast, the world beyond them is a mess of bright white, and work is the last thing on her mind.

“i think there’s a scrabble board on the bookshelf,” he says, glancing back at the dusty, faded stack of almanacs; this place, all gas-powered and wooden, looks exactly the way a cabin should look, the decor straight out of the 1960s, the mugs in the cabinet all fading shades of green and yellow, all of the furniture holding the scent of pine. if there’s a box of scrabble in here, it’ll be an old version, the rulebook fading and three or four of the pieces missing. looking to him, she smiles softly, figures that everything’s more alluring when it has a quirk or two.

“yeah,” she offers, folding her pages over her bookmark, setting the novel down on the coffee-table. then, she shimmies down against the couch, her knees falling over his lap, and motions for him to come closer. though the word of the weekend is  _rich_ , she figures  _contact_  would also suffice.

“we’re not going to fit,” he warns but leans down alongside her anyway; with his folded legs draping across her hips and his arm steadying himself around her stomach, she exhales, her mind blanking meditatively, her heartbeat slow and soft. 

“i’m sorry that there’s not much to do around here,” he whispers against her skin, his lips ghosting against her collarbone. “i should’ve planned something else. though i know you like quiet places, this might be a little _too_  quiet.”

“no, no,” she says, shaking her head as she twines his fingers through his hair. then, she quirks a lip, says, “a calm, quiet weekend with you is a rare treat.”

“we could’ve gone to san jose,” he muses; though she’s not entirely sure, she thinks he’s joking. “i heard that there have been sightings there. we could’ve stayed up until four in the morning, looked for flying saucers, and eaten junk food all weekend.”

“how romantic,” she deadpans. 

“this hasn’t been romantic at all,” he grumbles, the statement self-deprecating, his words intended for himself only.

on the drive from some tiny rural airport in vermont to this cabin, he brought out his blues brothers cd to keep them entertained while the radio stations went in and out; he imitated the guys on npr for a certain stretch of miles, each quip being met with a smile from her. though they arrived too late on friday night to see much of the property, he offered her a ski mask and sat on the cabin’s porch with her, pointed out the seven sisters constellation and labeled it _the smudge in the sky_. that night, she took his sleep-shirt out of his duffel, put it on before he could, and the incredulous but deeply satisfied look he gave her for that - and the mild-mannered but insistent way he managed to get it back, or at least to let it reside on the bedroom’s floor for the remainder of the evening - was worth any backroad boredom they could’ve had. though she always knew he was loving, could discern his intelligent passion from the moment she first met him, she’s still shocked with every extraneous touch, with every unnecessary caress, with the way he’ll stop stirring risotto just so he can bring her into his arms, and she’s far more shocked with how at ease she feels with him. when he makes her dinner, when he borrows her chapstick though she insists that he shouldn’t, when he spoons up against her in bed as though he could read her mind and sense that she felt cold, she feels her mind soften, her muscles relax; simultaneously, they’re honeymooners and best friends, and as she turns her head, kisses his forehead, she whispers, “it’s been romantic.”

“but has it been a  _valentine’s day_  kind of romantic?” he asks. 

“of course it has,” she laughs. 

“really?”

“you’re asking someone who forgot about the holiday altogether.”

“so i should’ve made this year so memorable that you would _never_  forget it.”

she closes her eyes, breathes him in, thinks of how many hours they have to themselves, just the two of them in the middle of nowhere on a snowy day, books and scrabble keeping them company, this cabin making them feel as though they’re the only people left on earth.

“i’ll never forget it,” she whispers to him. “i promise.”


	60. in the ocean

**[sunflowerseedsandscience](https://sunflowerseedsandscience.tumblr.com/) said:** Bubbles!

  


she wouldn’t be wearing a swimsuit that small if anyone other than you and the nearby school of angelfish were here.

“mulder, that’s ridiculous,” she said last week at costco when you put two snorkel sets - a pink one for her because you think she looks cute in that color, a grey one for yourself because, unlike her, you don’t look good in pink - into your cart. “we’re not going to get  _that_  up-close. you know i don’t like swimming in the ocean.”

but as she dives below the sea’s surface once more, follows the school as they shimmy down by the nearly-endless reef below both of you, you’re pretty sure she was wrong.

she presses against the water with her hands, moves away from you while you look in between sea-fans and fire corals. though you’re thankful for the change, for the difference, you know these colors could never exist in the states, at least not in the part of the states where you both live, no matter how greatly you wish they would. out there, everything is grassy and earthy, the colors being those of mountains, canyons, freshwater lakes, but here, cold and warm fluorescents light up the strangely-blue water, and though you’re wearing goggles, the world comes through in perfectly clear technicolor. the fish are like pizza shop  _open_  signs, the reefs textured and endless, the sand flitted with pink flecks that shine out most when they’re stuck to her hands. after the bout of winter you’ve had in virginia, the warmth and vibrance of the maldives feel life-affirming, the combination acting as a brash awakening to the varying beauties of the world. you’re glad that your first true vacation together was to somewhere that feels like another planet.

and dana scully on a beach has been your most pleasant surprise so far. somehow, she found a tiny surf-shack for you both to stay in on himmafushi, just a bedroom and no kitchen, so when you’re both not lounging around and reading with the windows open, you’re on the beach, her sunscreen close by and your typical clothes left in your suitcases; most often, you’re both wearing swimsuits, the exposure of her skin so new even though you’ve known her for so many years. now, you eye her tattoo far ahead of you in the water, her glance drifting back, her eyes signaling  _keep up, mulder._

then, she dives down, and because she goes head-first past its edge, you’re sure she’s at the end of the reef. kicking forward, you follow, then tense as you see the depth; apparently, you’re farther out than you assumed, for the distance from the sandy bottom to the crests of the waves is…ten, maybe fifteen feet? the reef alone must be four feet tall. with her stomach parallel to the bottom, she swims alongside two stringrays, the three making a pale pack, the rays shimmying like bedsheets on a clothesline in summer; you breathe at the top of the water, the glugging sounds of lapping waves coming into your years, and wish you had a camera so that you could immortalize the way she blends in here, could always remember her sense of ease on this part of the planet. then, the rays swivel off in other directions, and she needs a breath, so she presses up, crests through the water a few feet away, leaves a trail of bubbles behind her. lazily, you pad over to her while her dainty little ankles tread water.

in open air, she pulls off her snorkel and goggles, takes a deep breath of fresh air, her nose pointing up and her eyes closing as though she’s communing with all of the elements around you.

“i see that you made some friends down there,” you quip, your snorkel hanging down into the water. it’s incredible, the color of the water here; it looks dyed or artificial, like the color of fake rivers on miniature golf courses, but the feel of it is authentic, so warm and real.

softly, she smiles, her lips pink like the inside of a conch shell, her freckles in full bloom, her eyes so bright that you wish it wouldn’t feel so clumsy to kiss her right now. with her open hand, she slicks back her long hair, nearly brunette in its soaked state, and looks out at the ocean, spanning for so many miles that you can’t begin to fathom where the next island is. when there’s nothing but horizon beyond the sea, you feel particularly small, but somehow, you don’t mind being a tiny creature on some arbitrary planet when she’s by your side.

then, she glances back at the beach - and back toward you - and grimaces.

“we’re a little far out,” she says as she looks at the sandy lap on shore.

though you see people in town when you go out for meals, here, near your little shack, there’s no one else, just the two of you, the sand, and the sea. on shore, your two towels and her sunscreen sit undisturbed. she worries her lip, seems reluctant but ready to head in.

“we should go back,” she says though you can hear the hesitation in her voice.

“are you sure?” you ask.

she leans her head back, bright sunlight pinking her cheeks. softly, she smiles, admits, “no.”

you smirk, ask, “what ever happened to not liking the ocean, scully?”

rolling her eyes, she defends, “i just hadn’t been to a beach in a long time. i didn’t realize that i missed it.”

you didn’t realize that you missed going to public cafes with her, ordering coffees and just sipping them until you both were done, no other items on the itinerary. you didn’t realize that you missed the way your brains meld, how common information turns to a brainstorm turns to foreplay. you didn’t realize that you missed taking her on dates, real ones at nice restaurants while she wears a new dress. you didn’t realize that you missed packing a suitcase with her - only one because she wanted to save money on baggage fees, but based on the way she silently smiled while she set her swimsuits aside yours, you’re not sure that’s true - and watching her brow furrow in concern while she debated which books to bring, how many she would exhaust during their jaunt. you didn’t know that you missed the bright summery freckles on her nose, the patterns they create.

“yeah,” you say in understanding.

“we really should head in,” she says with a nod, then begins to strap her pink snorkel back on.

“i’ll race you?” you ask as a joke, but then, she dives down, kicks bubbles back up at you, forces you to chase her wake.

though you try to reach her - after all, you’ve got the advantage of height - your laughter chokes up your snorkel, and that fire coral far blow, though it seems not to faze her, leaves you feeling cautious. once you reach the shore, the angelfish and octopi and rays all behind you, you take off your flippers while still in the water - she’s insisted upon that every time - and together, you walk over to your two towels, the only blemish on this pristine, untouched beach. dropping her snorkel to the side, she sits down on her towel, dries off with its edges, and, because she’s scully, immediately picks up her bottle of sunscreen. in your suitcase, there are three more unopened bottles though you’ve both exhausted two already.

“let me,” you say, so she turns onto her stomach, faces out at the sea while she rests on her forearms. you squeeze coconut-scented lotion onto your hand, rub your palms together, and softly massage her shoulders.

“mulder?” she asks, her voice quiet and blissful. you hum a response, to which she asks, “what if we never go home?”

“and stay here forever?” you laugh. “scully, you’d get a tan for the first time in your life.”

“it would be all of this, all of the time,” she muses, and somehow, she seems not to be joking.

“it’d lose its allure,” you say as you move down her nearly-bare back. in this little navy bikini, she’s barely covered; you trace the circles of her tattoo before you grab more lotion.

“actually, i don’t think it would,” she says, shaking her head softly.

though you still have to do her thighs and calfs, you put down the lotion, lean forward in order to kiss the back of her shoulder instead; at that, she turns her head toward you, eyes you warmly.

“things are going to be different now,” she says. “we don’t have to hide anymore.”

“thank goodness,” you say, then pick up the lotion again.

“i want you to get a job.”

“see?” you huff. “already losing its allure.”

in annoyance, she insists, “it can be anything you want it to be. i just…i want you to get out of the house.”

“i’m out of the house right now.”

“i want you to find something you can do without me.”

“there isn’t anything that i want to do without you.”

glancing back, she gives you a look, so you give in, say, “i’ll find something. i promise.”

“thank you,” she says.

once you’ve finished with her legs, she turns onto her stomach and lies down, so you scoot up alongside her, the ebbs and flows of the waves and of her breaths keeping time for you. leaning in, you kiss the tip of her nose, and laughter bubbles up from her lips; the sight of dana scully laughing on a beach, her long hair sopping wet and her eyes brighter than the maldivian sun, is a sight you hope never to forget.

“why don’t we stay an extra week?” she asks, but from her smile, you know she’s only dreaming even though you would give anything to grant her such a wish.

“not this time around,” you say.

“what a pity,” she says, then leans forward to kiss your cheek.

_yeah,_  you think, the press of her lips warm against your skin.  _what a pity._


	61. in the symbolism

**[how-i-met-your-mulder](https://how-i-met-your-mulder.tumblr.com/) said:** Blanket? :)

you wake to the sound of a door closing, and your first thought is  _well, that’s symbolic_.

you’re in his apartment, on his couch, and still wearing your pantyhose; at some point in conversation, you must’ve fallen asleep, and he must’ve spread that patterned blanket of his over you, pulled it up on your shoulders in the way he knows you like. the last time you woke like this, he was sitting alongside you, the rented  _starship troopers_  tape - his idea, of course - left unwound in the vcr, your last memories being those from twenty minutes into the movie; the time before that, you’d been awake since four in the morning because, of course, he’d called you and claimed he needed your expertise in regard to a pressing matter even though you know he just wanted to hear your voice, so that evening, while you wore lacy lingerie beneath your work-clothes, you conked out long before he could realize you’d made an effort. though you knew going into this that it would be a marriage, not a courtship, you wish that you at least felt some discomfort toward him, that you would keep your makeup on all night and sneak away to reapply it, that you would cover up in front of him so that you still held some air of mystery. with daniel waterston, you were elusive, the other woman, the young and malleable mind, the woman of the future; with mulder, you’re the partner who falls asleep on his couch. though you scoff yourself for thinking that, insist that what you have now is far more real than anything you ever had with daniel was, you still wish you accented your femininity more often. you wish you still knew how to be romantic.

but instead, you fall asleep on his couch, and now, you can hear the sink running, so you figure he’s in the bathroom. last week, he told you that the valve must not be working because the faucet leaks, but after the case with the luckiest man on earth, he figures he should hire someone to fix it. soon enough, you’ll have to teach him how to use a wrench.

you check your watch; the night’s still young, and you don’t plan on going home, so you’re going to bed in one of two ways: naked or clothed, sexed or unsexed. regardlessly, you won’t be spending the rest of the evening on his couch, so you shrug out of the blanket, messily fold it onto the edge of the cushions, crack your sleepy joints as you stand. though the thought of exercise, be it walking up a flight of stairs or exerting yourself in other ways, makes your muscles tense, you count the days anyway. four, five…ten. it’s been ten days since you last had sex with him, not even for lack of trying. though he wanted to stay over, and though you wanted to spend time with him, journal articles and crows in vermont took momentary precedence, so it’s been ten whole days. before you can think the course of actions through, you pull off your blazer, shimmy out of your skirt. though the easygoing pace of what you have with mulder is comfortable, you’ll be damned if you ever go more than ten days without him again, so you pull off your shirt, your brassiere, abandon your pantyhose on the floor. when the door to the bathroom reopens, you pick up the blanket once more, wrap it around yourself, push your clothes off to the corner of the room, sit back down where he left you.

“hey,” he says as he reenters the living room, as he sees your open eyes. “did you have a nice nap?”

“yeah,” you say, flustered; suddenly, you’re cold, and the chill brings your bare skin to a heady alertness. with the blanket covering your shoulders and the tops of your thighs, you appear not to have moved since he left.

“do you need me to drive you home?” he asks kindly, goodheartedly, as though ten days is nothing, as though he doesn’t feel deprived. 

“no,” you say. “i’d like to stay.”

“okay,” he says, then offers a hand to help you up, a hand you don’t take. furrowing his brow, he asks, “is everything alright?”

“yes, of course,” you say preemptively. 

then, you stand alone, take the blanket up with you, but before he can turn away, before he heads to bed, you let the blanket pool at your feet, the living room lamplight casting you in a warm glow, your piquant body open for him, your eyes demanding something between war and worship.

as he rightfully should, he gapes.


	62. hesitation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this also falls out of the theme of this collection but again is something i wish to save here.

**[kateyes224](http://kateyes224.tumblr.com/) said:** Hesitation

_(one year post season 8 finale,[insp](http://howthisworks-caskett.tumblr.com/post/157077053237/best-kind-of-naps))_

he parks in front of the house, two iced coffees in his cupholders, a sunday paper on the passenger’s seat. after church this morning, she had wanted to stay in, so he took a trip into town on her behalf; in the backseat, there’s a paper bag filled with two wrapped bagels, a cinnamon raisin with butter for himself and an everything coated in cream cheese for her. checking his watch, he hopes that will’s down for a nap so that he and scully can have breakfast on the porch, just the two of them feeling the summery breeze on their skin, thoughts of monsters and autumn still far away.

“if we’re starting over, then i want a starting-over house,” she’d said in her georgetown apartment while will was nestled in her arms around this time in july last year. “no where near the city. somewhere rural, but not  _too_ rural. not a development either. a real home, mulder, the kind that’ll always be ours. otherwise, we’ll rent a three bedroom in the city, okay?”

of course, he listened, so now, they’re a mile from the next house here in rural virginia, their home just big enough to be roomy for two adults and a baby. on the long wraparound porch, they have chairs and citronella candles, a rarely-used hammock hanging at one edge. beyond the house, the yard extends to a treeline, and with each morning sunrise - typically shared with cups of coffee, scully, and an all-too-awake will - he finds himself more calm and content with this place. though moving in together and planning for the future had seemed so dire, so finite, he finds, as he climbs out of the car, that this place has become his haven, his heart’s home.

inside - they never lock the front door anymore - he sets the two coffees on the kitchen counter; a basket full of folded laundry sits in the living room, and with all of the blinds pulled up and some of the windows open, the house is flooded in natural light, the scent of fresh linen and summer air filling the place. of course, she brought every single one of her books here, so they have endless shelves in the living room, novels wedged in among files he saved, photo albums stuffed in between carl sagan’s best works. though they have a television, the only time it’s ever on is during baseball games, and even then, it simply plays in the background while they go about doing other things. in the kitchen, he keeps basic cookbooks, and recently, he’s been trying to learn recipes, to fry and sauté and simmer in ways he’s never managed to master. hand-stitched curtains, a gift from her mother, billow against a breeze in the living room, and light through glass casts a rainbow along the hardwood floor; the couch is plush and so comfortable that he’s watched scully fall asleep on it more times than he can count. when they first bought the place, they painted the walls in here a warm olive color. in a corner of the room, her utterly neglected yoga mat sits. because it proved necessary, every single cabinet, including the high ones, is childproofed.

though he wants to call out in search of her, he stays quiet, leaves the paper on the kitchen table, heads upstairs to see if will’s asleep. along the upstairs hallway, she hung pictures of him and his sister together along with her family’s various christmas cards of yore; though he thought looking at photographs of the dead would bring a darkness he disliked into their home, he pauses at the pictures, smiles softly at how bright samantha’s eyes had been. he likes that, in every childhood easter picture of hers, scully always has grass-stains on her white tights, and she always stands closest to her dad. though mulder’s told her otherwise, he secretly appreciates that he never had the opportunity to prove himself to be a letdown to her father. of course, she would insist that her father would’ve loved him, but as a parent himself now, mulder’s sure that wouldn’t have been the case.

will’s room is the first down the hallway, so softly, mulder opens the door and peers inside. because the blinds are pulled back, he knows that will mustn’t be napping, but nonetheless, he stares in at the clean and folded onesies waiting to be put back into his little drawers, focuses on the soft blankets in his crib. the room smells of baby powder and warmth, and though mulder abhorred children only years ago, he cannot begin to understand a distaste for such innocent softness. heading out of will’s room, he walks over to their bedroom, and the door’s open wide, light streaming in through the windows, and in the jamb, he stills, looks on as though he’s a sudden outsider.

on her side, she curls up in bed, her wrap dress askew across her bare, unshaven legs. haphazardly, she tied her long hair back in that half-ponytail, half-bun that she so frequently indulges, and her eyes are so intent on the baby in her arms that she has yet to notice mulder’s presence. with the doors unlocked and with such deep distractions, he swears they’re going to end up as the victims in what could been considered inspiration for a future slasher film, but then, will babbles, and she laughs, her smile so wide and warm that it feels like summer sun to him after months and months of freezing rain, and despite the unlocked doors, he knows they’re all safe.

brushing her hands over the back of will’s head, she pulls the baby closer, kisses his forehead; will echoes  _ma, ma, ma_  like he always does, and though mulder keeps insisting that those are will’s first words, scully usually counters that, at thirteen months, the baby’s merely babbling though the shy smile that remains on her lips afterward says she hopes that’s not the case.

hesitating, he thinks that maybe he should go back downstairs, wait until will’s settled into a nap before they have breakfast together. since mulder started teaching at the university nearby, his position adjunct but a position nonetheless, they decided to split up time with will, let just mulder and the baby spend time together at night while scully, who took a leap of faith in turning in her resignation last year, takes care of him all day. though they value time together as a family, they value one-on-one as well, so he turns away, curses himself as he hits that one creaky floorboard he’s always meant to fix. of course, she glances over, sees him, and somehow, her smile only grows warmer.

“hey,” she says softly, and he feels he could faint. 

“hey,” he says, his voice hushed. “i brought breakfast.”

“great,” she says, then reaches out with one hand to tap his side of the bed. “c’mere.”

for a moment, he hesitates, but then, will laughs, and scully rolls her eyes, insists, “get over here.”

he steps past his slippers, ones she always trips over, and settles onto his side of the bed, the sheets freshly washed and the quilt, another gift from her mother, accented with warm blue tones. though they budgeted most of the house, they put money into the mattress, so as he sinks into it, he sighs, wonders how it’s possible that, even though he feels so calm, he still manages to find deeper relaxation nonetheless.

gingerly, scully loosens her grip around will, so the baby wiggles over toward mulder, his son’s wide smile making mulder’s heart clench.

“ma, ma, ma,” the baby continues as mulder wraps his arms around his son.

“i’m not mama,” mulder laughs, his smile refusing to fade. “she’s the pretty one, remember?”

at that, scully blushes, moves closer to him so that their foreheads nearly touch. she holds the aroma of all-natural lavender laundry detergent, holy water, and something so intrinsically her that he never wants to understand its exact composition. and roses, he thinks. roses, like that balm she uses on her lips so that, whenever she kisses him, she leaves a little pink stain on his cheek.

as will’s breathing deepens, mulder snuggles closer to his son, both his and scully’s eyes tracing every part of the baby. once he’s sure that will’s asleep, mulder shifts the baby in his arms, slowly climbs out of bed while scully’s at his heels. she opens will’s room for mulder, watches from the doorway while mulder sets their son down in his crib, while mulder pulls the blinds down. when he leaves the room, mulder takes their baby monitor, keeps the door open, rests his hand on the small of scully’s back while they walk down the stairs and into the living room.

“want to have breakfast on the porch?” she asks. 

_yes,_  he thinks.  _i’d love to._


	63. restrained

**Anonymous said:**  Restrained

post  _Founder’s Mutation_

* * *

Her hands are tied behind her back, the tethers invisible but tight, her wrists aching against their everlasting pull. Though she rarely sleeps on her stomach - he noticed that too, furrowed his brow as she shifted positions in bed, wondered what other habits she’d picked up of late - she lies chest-down now, her cheek hot against the starched pillow, her lungs heavy upon the mattress. He’s still awake, so of course, he knows she’s still awake.

Once upon a time - he used to always begin his stories like that,  _once upon a time, two agents named Mulder and Scully scurried out to the far reaches of the planet and learned that, in the end, it doesn’t matter what we see but with whom we see it_  - they shared a bed like this. Not in the romantic way, no, but in the incidental and apologetic way that two non-lovers subdued daily by mutual but silent attraction would. Once upon a time, they checked into a Motel 6 and found, well, damn it, there’s one room left, only a queen-size open. Though she knew better than to believe in the law of averages, she still mused the statistical improbability, the way that the theorems of the world should at least have allowed for one or two cancellations that night; last week, she read a theory on how the world is all  _Matrix_  - she still knows where that DVD is in their home, wedged up between  _Contact_  and  _Interstellar_  on the shelf - and just a computer simulation, and if that’s true, then the mathematical modeling that binds everyone together should have given them another option. They could have driven to another hotel even though it was past midnight, or they could have crashed on the local sheriff’s couch, or they could have slept in the car while parked alongside two RVs and a truck in a starkly-lit Walmart lot. Instead, Mulder looked to her, then agreed to one room, and the way her heart had stopped at the prospect made her wonder if morals could ever be absolute; if pain and terror could be so exciting, then why are the body’s warning signs? Why are the things that terrify us so indulgent? 

But she digressed and came into bed with him and silenced her scientific mind while he stayed above the sheets. He slept in sweats and a tee shirt while she wore all-too-proper pajamas, a  _night suit_  as he’d once called them. Then, she slid onto her side and stared toward the motel room’s window, one blocked off by a shabby curtain that let flickers of parking lot light in, and she waited for something she couldn’t identify.

“You’re still awake,” he said after minutes, hours, days, she couldn’t tell.

“You are too,” she gave softly, hesitantly.

“Of course I am,” he said. “I don’t sleep.”

Uncomfortably, she lay there, her body tense in a workday kind of way: shoulders up, eyes wide open and stinging with tiredness, stomach empty, legs aching. Back then, her restraints were looser around her wrists, and sometimes, they threatened to fall beyond her fingers, so regularly, she tightened them. Occam’s Razor, she used to explain to herself; it was far more likely that she was simply unsexed and bored with her personal life than that she was silently but genuinely in love with him, so she kept her professional rigidity, left her mask of scientific indifference on.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a long pause.

Though she too was sorry, she knew their reasonings wouldn’t align, so she kept quiet. In the morning, they didn’t discuss how he curled up against her back at some point in the night, and they didn’t make a big deal about how she stared a second too long after walking in on him while he was in the shower. Most of all, they never talked about what they would do if such a thing happened again.

And it did happen again, though new context forced previous awkwardness away. Instead of wasting money on two required hotel rooms, they were forced into one when they would’ve used only one anyway; with his hands strong around her hips, his mouth warm and wet against her skin, she found those nights similar to any other night of that time, the room situation disregarded. For a while, she only stayed in hotels during medical conferences in far-off places, so she reserved one room with one bed, the practice easy and simple and everyday. Nowadays, they’re back to two rooms, one bed each, and as they did once upon a time, they both retreat to their own rooms at night, only now she wears his old shirts to bed while she doubts he wears anything at all.

Tonight, she asked for two rooms, and, what do you know, they’re booked. After all, this motel’s tiny, and up here in the Adirondacks during on-season, kitschy cabin-style places that are cheap and have enough parking for a boat rack sell out quickly. Though there are eight units total, seven were full upon their arrival, only one left to boot. The next closest establishment is at least twenty miles away, and here in lake-and-land country, the roads are dark and narrow, begging a driver to lose control. In terms of probability, it seems the world wants her to lose control in some way or another. This time, she accepted the one room while he stared on blankly. 

“You’re still awake,” he says, and she feels the restraints grow tighter.

“I am,” she says blandly.

“I can feel you thinking.”

“That’s an absurd thing to say.”

Her eyes close. She pictures a time not so long ago, a morning in their house back when they’d hung white summery curtains in their bedroom; she imagines how he would nuzzle up against her collarbone and ask what was on that exquisite mind of hers.

“What’s keeping you up?” he asks with bored interest. Way out here in the country, they don’t put TVs in motel rooms because, apparently, technology takes away from the  _experience;_  for now, she’s his only entertainment, that irony hardly lost on her.

She takes a deep breath, feels the press of her lungs against the top-sheet beneath her. Cloth barriers cover their skin. He smells like himself again.

And what  _is_  keeping her up? Was it the way he offered to sleep on the floor as though they’d never shared a bed before, as though such a thing would never be commonplace again? Or was it how lonely she’d felt after their last case together, after thoughts of their son returned to the front of her mind? Or was it the way she now stayed awake until the small hours of the morning, her bed too big and her apartment too quiet, her heart rate quickening when she wondered if, now that they’re back at the Bureau, he would start calling her at two am just to ask her opinion on an arbitrary extraterrestrial matter again? Was it how he could take his medications in front of her without second-guessing himself? Or was it the serendipity of the evening, how the one room left at the motel meant her craving to sleep next to him would finally,  _finally_ , be nourished? 

_Occam’s razor,_  she thinks. 

“I read this theory on humanity,” she explains, “about how we’re all in some big computer simulation. It makes sense in certain ways. After all, the world can be reduced to series of patterns if we really need it to be. However, it doesn’t account for the inaccuracies, the places where our theorems aren’t fully held.”

“Huh,” he says.

_Huh._  In her imagining, he kisses where her neck meets her jaw and says  _tell me more._

“I don’t know,” she continues. This room is small and creaky, the wood cheap and painted a muddy brown, the one window shielded by ungodly curtains. Side by side, their suitcases sit close to the door, her 360-degree wheels and his hell-and-back duffel a modest distance apart. Absentmindedly, she wonders which one is hardier, more applicable to the kind of travel they do: the expensive and ergonomic bag or the bag that’s been to worse places but survived nonetheless. “There are some things that seem mathematically unpredictable to me.”

“Like what?”

Softly, her wrists relax. She turns onto her side so that she can face him, but suddenly, she stares down at his chest, at the shirt she washed so many times that it got holes in the sleeves; a man so close to her in bed is an indulgence she’s foregone since she left him. With late-night scruff and eyes renewed with light, he looks younger somehow. 

“Like…” she furrows her brow and looks down as she searches for an example. “Like meeting you that first time. Statistically improbable. There’s got to be some other explanation.”

Giving that half-smile he used to shoot her from across the console of a cheap rental car, he shifts in bed, asks, “And why do you think that was an anomaly?”

“Well,” she continues, “there were plenty of other agents around my age with scientific backgrounds at that time, and in the end, they wanted logic to derail your findings, not science. Science is the language of change; logic is the language of control. We both know which of those they wanted more.”

He nods against his pillow. In the darkness, his face is a greyscale, all age-lines and soft eyes and timelessness, a sense that he’s always been looking at her in this way. As her restraints loosen, she reaches her arms forward, folds them in front of her chest.

“What if your assignment was part of the math of it all?” he asks, and she remembers how he told her he failed his one statistics course in college. “What if that is the most logical thing that could have happened? What if anything  _other_  than that would have been statistically improbable?”

“Fate?” she asks with a dry laugh. “You’re really bringing  _fate_  into this?”

“Well, if you put it  _that_  way-”

“The second law of thermodynamics,” she states. “The disorder in a system tends to stay the same. It’s more likely that things will go wrong than that they’ll go right.”

“So meeting me was cosmically right.”

_I don’t know,_  she thinks, but his words set her wrists free, so she reaches toward him, places a single hand on his chest.

“Newton’s third law,” she says quietly; through his shirt, she can feel his pulse quicken.

“Scully,” he warns but simultaneously begs.

“We haven’t share a bed in-”

He mumbles a number of days that she pretends not to hear, not to already know.

“If it’s all fake, just some number-cruncher putting in values,” he says, trying to sound casual as he places his hand over hers, “then why did this happen?”

Defining that indeterminate  _why,_  she says, “God creates man.”

He huffs. “You and that God of yours.”

“There was no room for Mary and Joseph at the inn.”

“We’re not at an inn, and they had room for us here.”

“There’s only eight units, and it’s on-season,” she explains. “Statistically speaking, this was likely to happen.”

“Two probabilities walk into a bar,” he quips.

“Occam’s razor,” she supplies.

“The simplest explanation is often the correct one.”

“Yes,” she says, then leans forward to kiss him.


	64. cold, ocean, phonebook

**Anonymous said:**  cold, ocean, phonebook

_post Drive_

* * *

What she needed was a local dive, some seedy diner with busted red vinyl booths and laminated menus featuring blue plate specials and eggs any way you would like them. As dusk settled over the Californian sea beyond her, she flipped through a phonebook, thought of keywords for what she wanted: milkshakes, family-owned, titled as  _Chuck’s Place_  or  _Beverly’s Diner_  or even  _The Greasy Spoon_. Biting her lip in concentration, she counted the waves beyond her little payphone, measured time with them as she looked over all of the listed restaurants from here to San Francisco. Loleta was an odd combination of seaside and rustic, rich and unpopulated; if she wanted a diner, she would have to drive, and after that day, she didn’t want to be stuck behind a wheel any longer than was absolutely necessary.

And Kersh had been called, and their asses were on the line, and their return flight to D.C. would be filled with her last moments of reprieve before an inevitable hailstorm of paperwork, liability, and unfortunately both metaphorical and literal manure rained down upon her desk, but somehow, she had the inkling that a good plate of corned beef hash at a checkered palace where neon lights claimed  _open twenty-four hours_  and where blonde waitresses scooted around on roller-skates would at least take Mulder’s mind off of exploding eardrums and the fragility of human life. Of course, the inkling was hardly backed up by solid scientific fact, and just last week, she’d told him that he needed to better his diet for the sake of his heart’s health, but nonetheless, she needed to find him respite, a place where he felt most in his element. First, a diner came to mind even though Loleta seemed void of any diners.

Back in her second year working with him, they’d been stranded in a snowstorm in Burlington, the roads closed and all of the native Vermonters snuggled beneath flannel sheets while she’d phoned her mother to say why she couldn’t make mass on Sunday. That night, they’d holed up in one of the few bed-and-breakfasts that had power, the lake effect wind rustling the shutters on her window, the television’s rabbit ears barely picking up a signal, and at two in the morning, when she’d somehow still been awake, he’d knocked heavily at her door, shouted to her, “I’m starving. Want to get dinner?”

And then, they were in a Ford Taurus - rented, of course - barreling over snowdrifts while plows on all kinds of cars - most commonly trucks but also Jeeps and Yukons and even the occasional S.U.V. - cleared what they could, silent and fat flakes of snow still falling well into the night. From the reckless turns Mulder made, and from the crunchy way the brake pedal on that car had felt even before the snowstorm, she clenched her fists on her lap for the whole ride, her mind repeating  _I cannot die in a snowstorm with this man, for that’ll be the most tragic way for me to go._ While Mulder sought out a diner, they both realized that, apparently, there was a culture surrounding the idea of a diner and that so-called  _diner culture_  didn’t exist in Vermont, where shops closed at five in the afternoon and dared not reopen until morning. Stomachs empty, they made it back to the motel, where they managed two candy bars out of a vending machine and where they sat together on his bed, her boots left at the door while his were kicked off haphazardly in the middle of the room, and watched local programming on the fuzzy television. Unsurprisingly, Vermont news was tame to the point of hilarity; over processed chocolates, they laughed at how Mrs. Roberts’ grandson’s visit was the breaking story of the night, and when Scully fell asleep alongside Mulder, he was polite enough not to wake her until morning.

And now, she once again found that, when they needed a diner most, one would never appear.

Stepping over to where she stood at the little payphone off of the side of the road, he looked over her shoulder, asked, “Why don’t we just find a place to stay for the night?”

She took a deep, quiet breath, her eyes cast down at the Yellow Pages.

“We need dinner,” she said coolly.

“There’s a burger shack two miles up the road,” he commented; she wondered how he knew that while she’d been left oblivious. “Let’s just go there.”

She sucked her lips into a near-smile, went to nod when he quipped, “Unless that’s not up to your standards for my diet.”

But his little smile fell flat, held solemnness beneath it, and suddenly, her mind blanked, then centered on one thought: it was absolutely up to her to protect this man, to comfort him, for she was the only person in the world who could, yet she couldn’t even find him dinner when prompted to do so.

“It’s fine,” she managed, then set the phonebook back down, headed for the driver’s side of their rental car. 

At the passenger’s side, he climbed in, and with the radio off, she pulled away from the ocean in silence.

* * *

They were lucky for the summer weather, for the lack of youngsters mulling about the shack’s picnic tables, for the fact that the place was still open even though the sun was beginning to set.  _Benji’s Burgers,_  a hand-painted sign on top of the place indicated, and the menu was simple, just five separate burger titles and their ingredients listed on a propped-up chalkboard. Two teenagers worked the place, and when Mulder asked if either of them was Benji, he received shrugs and the excuse that Benji was out of town on business.

“Burger business?” Mulder asked incredulously as they later sat alongside each other at a picnic table, plastic baskets of burgers and fries in front of them. “What kind of burger business do you have to go out of town for?”

In between bites, she commented, “Maybe this is just his side business.”

The sky formed a shade of bright orange, remarkable and vast above them; cars would occasionally buzz past the roadside shack, but mostly, the only sounds were the summer insects around them and the transistor radio that the two teens had set up in the shack. Currently, some staticky Spencer Davis song played, and she kicked off her heels beneath the table, let her feet rest bare against the earth beneath them.

“ _Benji’s Burgers,_ ” Mulder enunciated, hovering his burger in front of his mouth, “a front for  _Benji’s Blow and Dope._  This, of course, is just a side business. Doesn’t make nearly as much money.”

For his sake, she quirked a lip at that even though her face felt heavy with woe, her eyes tired, her uncertainty making her hands shaky as she went to take a bite of her own burger. Extra mustard, hold the pickles. He’d ordered for her.

“Do you think at all about dying nowadays?”

The question left her gagging on her bite, one of her hands coming to her mouth while she forced herself to chew, swallow, find words. Before she could speak, he smiled to himself at her response, admitted, “I didn’t mean to make you choke.”

Embarrassed, she defended, “It was an abrupt change of subject.”

“We can’t lie as though it wasn’t on our minds.”

She took a deep breath, said, “No, we can’t.”

“With the cancer and all, it must’ve been hard  _not_  to think about it,” he said, “but do you ever thinking about it now?”

“About dying?”

He nodded softly, honestly, so she shrugged, offered, “Sometimes, I guess. When we thought Crump-”

“Mister Crump,” Mulder corrected, then took another bite of his burger, Benji’s so-called  _special sauce_  leaving a red stain alongside his lips.

“Well, when we though that  _Mister Crump_  had been infected with something bacterial,” she repeated, “I thought about dying.”

“How did it feel?” he asked. “The concept, I mean. The thought of it all.”

She weighed her words, gave, “Horrifying. Uncomfortable. But in the end, your only option is acceptance.”

“It’s not your  _only_  option,” he said. “You could be kicking and screaming until the very end, right until that profound plug is pulled. You’d don’t need to accept a thing.”

“You need to accept it if you want peace of mind.”

“Who cares about peace of mind?” he asked. “If you’re going to be dead, then why does it matter?”

And to that, she had no response, so she stared down at her lap, the fries in her basket going cold, a sedan driving past at a speed that deserved a ticket. Uncomfortably, he shifted his weight, finished off his meal, kept his eyes down.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m being an ass.”

“You had a rough day.”

“He didn’t deserve to die, Scully.”

“Does anyone?”

Humorlessly, he laughed.

“You don’t want to know my answer to that,” he admitted, meeting her eyes.

She stuck a cold, unsatisfying fry into her mouth and wondered where they would stay tonight as she chewed.

“I just think that today’s injustices were avoidable,” he said, unbuttoning two buttons on his shirt and ruffling his - dirty, she might add - hands through his hair. “You said that everyone in that home area was dead. There’s no way a government can rationalize that.”

“A government can rationalize anything,” she mumbled as he chose not to listen.

“How many more people have to die, Scully?” he asked. “How many more innocent civilians have to get in the way before someone,  _anyone_ , realizes that this is unjust?”

“You’re assuming they don’t already realize that this is unjust.”

“I can’t keep doing this anymore, talking to rednecks about their beets and pretending I’m making a difference,” he said softly. “There’s so much more out there, so much more I could be doing.”

“We’ll find our way back to cases like this,” she assured, bringing her palm to rest on his leg. “We’ll solve x-files again. We’ll be able to help again.”

“But what have the x-files done for either of us?” he asked, his tone stark. “They caused your abduction, your cancer. They’ve attacked our families, and for what, Scully? For next to nothing. If we do something, people die. If we don’t do something, people die. There’s no way out of this.”

As Jim Croce crooned hazily through the teens’ radio, she folded her hands on her lap, swallowed hard. Though she wanted to offer something, to say that everything would be fine and that no one would ever die again and that the world, though he had never been able to see it in such a way, was, at its depths, a good place, she couldn’t offer any of that without knowing her statements would be lies. Breathing in, she closed her eyes, felt the soft touch of a breeze, could smell the sweat and grime heavy on his skin; when she thought of their flight home in the morning, of the inevitable meeting with Kersh, her heart began to race, so she pushed those thoughts away, forced herself to find something that would comfort him. Her search for a greasy spoon had failed; her consolation efforts were nonexistent; though she thought she knew him better than anyone else did, she still couldn’t find words to take his mind from the injustices of the universe.  _The injustices of men,_  she corrected herself. The injustices of the world were mauled animal corpses left to rot in the savannah; the injustices of men were a slew of deceased bodies as a product of government experiments.

Opening her eyes, she reached out, took his sticky hand in hers, entwined her little fingers between his thick, calloused ones. The sky was fading to darker tones, and by now, she knew he needed somewhere to rest and wash, but she still searched for something to say, some little compliment or inside joke or anything else that would bloom a smile of his, but her search continued to be fruitless.

“You’re pensive,” he said with a dry laugh, but she could hear a hint of nervousness in his voice.

Softly, he curled his fingers against hers, so she sucked her lips into a smile, spoke the first words that came to mind.

“Some of my best memories are with you,” she said, the compliment absent-minded and unrelated, but as she looked up, she saw the stunned look on his face, the deep blue-grey of his eyes, the way he looked at her as though everything else had momentarily faded away, leaving only her dry and freckled face in its wake. With sauce still on his cheek, he was messy and unshowered and himself, and she wanted to curl her arms around him and reassure herself that, even though death seemed to follow them wherever they went, it had yet to touch them and that that was a good thing.

Glancing down and breaking their eye contact, he smiled toward his shoes, said, “Let’s go find a hotel, Scully.”

Exhaling, she nodded, said, “Somewhere nice.”

“On the bureau card?

She gave him a look, said, “We’ll call it repayment for the talking-to Kersh’ll give us in Washington.”

Smiling, he stood, pulled her up as well. She picked up her heels and dangled them from her open hand while he led her back toward the car, but before he could go around to the passenger’s side, before he let go of her hand, he added, “Scully?”

She hummed a response, looked up at him with new perspective; she so rarely stood next to him flat-footed, so the positioning reminded her of the moment when he’d held her in the hospital after Penny Northern had died, of how warm and alive he’d felt alongside her dying body. Absently, she wondered how his arms would feel now, California nighttime surrounding them, unrighteous death behind them and personal anger ahead.

Looking down, he admitted, “Most of my best memories are with you too.”

Then, he ducked over to his side of the car, and as she opened her own car door, as she slid her shoes back on, she didn’t realize that she’d begun to smile.


	65. sunday, 3am

“Gently,” she stressed.

Sitting on the sink-counter, she looked washed-out in the harsh fluorescent light of their bathroom, a little spatter of blood staining the shoulder of her light blue scrubs, her skin a wintery kind of pale and her freckles fading as though they’d been one of God’s afterthoughts. Her braid rested tattered and ripped down her spine, long red strands falling in front of the bruises on her cheek, and as he carded her hair back behind her ear, she flinched involuntarily, her shaky hands stilling on her lap, her breath hitching.

“It’s okay,” he whispered, the bag of ice in his hand hovering before her, his brain buzzing in the overtired way he used to feel accustomed to. If his circadian rhythms were reliable, then he and his body estimated that three in the morning, maybe half past, had come and gone. A long time ago, she’d told him that keeping lights on from the nighttime hours of ten-to-ten harmed the brain’s ability to produce melatonin, but he figured that light would be the least of their worries tonight.

Softly, she met his gaze, then looked back down at her lap.

“Sorry,” she said, wincing at the word. “I’m just…I’m still a little shaken up.”

He nodded, then gingerly brought the ice to her cheek, and though she recoiled at first, luckily she eased against his touch, let out a deep, exhausted breath.

“Is there any bleeding?” she asked, her voice muffled by the ice.

“None at all,” he said.

She swallowed, said, “The nurse there seemed like she was doing a great job of cleaning it.”

“And you’re absolutely sure you’re not concussed?” he asked as he leaned against the sink, the house around them so still and silent that it made the winter beyond them feel heavier and thicker than it already was. 

Looking up at him, she delicately pressed her lips together, said, “Had the nurse check. No headache or dizziness. I’m fine, Mulder.”

“Okay,” he said, nodding to himself. 

Though she avoided late shifts and preferred not to work on Saturdays, she’d been on a Saturday evening to Sunday morning emergency room shift, eight pm to eight pm, but a one am call let him know that a drunk patient, a punch to the face, and some police involvement meant that she would be coming home early. The last time he, in her words,  _went caveman_  left them both embarrassed and uncomfortable, but now, he wished he could’ve been there, could’ve watched over her and had her back so that some drunkard would’ve never decked her behind a modesty curtain, wouldn’t have had a chance to let her head thud against a sterile linoleum floor before punching her again. Though he wanted to think of this protectiveness as more than an ancient biological imperative, though he wished he didn’t find himself at fault for something so clearly irrelevant to his existence, he still brought Duane Barry and Phillip Padgett and all of the other men who had wronged her to mind, wondered once more if he could’ve done more. While at the Bureau, he could’ve argued that he was her partner, that it was of the utmost importance for them to watch each other’s backs, but now, he could hardly merit the wish.

And had he been there, he probably would’ve been decked too, only he would’ve cried about it instead of stoically driving home afterward like she did. Sometimes, he figured, the universe chose to punch the ones who could take it, not the ones who couldn’t.

“You’re never working a night shift again,” he said, hoping to elicit a laugh or at least a pained smile; thankfully, she reached toward him, wrapped her fingers in his open hand, kept her eyes down but let him know that she was present and receptive anyway. 

“I sure hope not,” she said, “but if they ever want me to, I’m sure that citing this incident will make them change their minds.”

Softly, he laughed, and though he figured it would hurt her to smile, the purplish and red smears of bruises on her cheeks keeping her from moving her face too much, she still quirked her lip, the movement minute but visible. 

“Did you have any Advil before you got home?” he asked.

“I had one before I left the hospital.” 

“Do you think you’ll be able to sleep?”

She sucked her lips in again, met his gaze, so he nodded in understanding. He figured neither or them would be getting much sleep tonight.

“Well,” he said, his voice turning theatrical, “I can offer some warm milk-”

“No hot liquids,” she said quickly. “Have to keep the swelling down.”

“Okay,” he said, off-put. There went his ideas for chamomile tea and maybe a warm bath in order to calm her down. “Then, cold water.”

“Thrilling.”

He squeezed her hand.

“What are you looking for, then?” he asked. “My mind goes numb after midnight.”

Taking a deep breath, she said, “A movie, something mindless. Just until we feel we could fall asleep.”

So she shed her blood-smeared scrubs and opted for pajamas and thick socks; while she migrated to the couch, held the ice against her more bluish cheek, he rifled through their bookshelf, found  _Sleepless in Seattle_  and liked the irony it provided, so he popped the tape in, the lights off in their living room, the fish tank fluorescent and bubbling in the background, the winter winds shifting the shutters on their fixer-upper farmhouse. He sat on her less-bruised side, and as she spread a shared blanket over their laps, he fast-forwarded coming attractions of many years ago, her two hands wrapping around his free one. While the movie began, he tuned Meg Ryan out and kept his eyes on her instead, tried to survey her body for telltale signs of stress. 

She’d told him long ago that she felt anxiety not in her mind but in her limbs, in her joints; while her thoughts told her to push forward, her body cringed and faded, her demise coming not from her will but from her physical breakdown, so he’d tried to be a constant for her, had kept track of her hours and made sure that, even when she seemed so determined to finish just one more stack of paperwork, she would go home for a good night’s rest instead. From those many times, he knew what to look for: raised shoulders, shaky hands, huffed breaths, glasses pushed up far more often than one would expect. However, tonight shifted that response because her breakdown had come from a patient, not from herself, so while she took shallow breaths during the movie, he traced his thumb against the back of her hand, let her lean into him with her face angled so that his shoulder and her bruises never quite made contact. As four am ticked past, he realized that he’d never watched this movie in full, but because he’d distracted himself during the first half of the film, he hadn’t a clue where the plot went.

“Scully?” he whispered, almost wincing at how his voice interrupted the special, rural silence around them. 

When she didn’t shift, he craned his neck, and though he should’ve been able to tell through her long, languid breaths against his chest, he only noticed that she’d fallen asleep when he looked down and saw her closed eyes. Reaching for the remote, he turned the television off, and with deft, gentle motions, he managed to lift her up without waking her - after all, she could sleep anywhere, from passenger’s seats of cheap rental cars to bleach-ridden motel beds to his old leather couch back before he’d been able to offer her a bed instead - and carried her upstairs though his aging joints protested with each step. 

Thankful that he’d left the bed unmade after she’d called, he managed to slip her beneath the overturned sheets on his side of the bed, tucked her in before he climbed in on the other still-made side. Out here, the nights were dark save for the endless lines of unobstructed stars in the sky, so he kept their bedroom’s blinds up, soft light falling over her bruising face, the rise and fall of her chest shifting the duvet while she slept. Her pillow smelled like that lavender shampoo she liked, and though the stuffing was too thick for him, he found that he could still relax into it, their respective alarm clocks off for now, her bedside book-stack dwindling as his seemed only to grow larger, her reading glasses askew and the closet door left open in a way that would’ve scared him as a child. 

And he presented himself with two lonely options: either he could work out hundreds of different scenarios that left her unscathed and him some kind of half-assed hero, or he could watch her soft breaths until their cadence lulled him to sleep. For once, he picked the second option and drifted off before morning began to creep through the windows.


	66. for fuck's sake

**Anonymous said:**  For fucks sake, Mulder, just take off your pants.

Staring incredulously, he watches her panting breaths, the way that burgundy pantsuit shifts while she stares him down. It’s a hideous suit, even by his standards. Absentmindedly, he pictures it crumpled on the floor of a bedroom that isn’t his own, darkness shading its tone into a more flattering color.

“I mean it,” she emphasizes, her tone cross and flighty; if she knew him better, she probably would’ve taken scissors to them and ripped them off already. A few cases ago, she mentioned that emergency room doctors had only been required to fully undress gunshot victims after Ronald Reagan - or was in Nixon? - nearly kicked the can due to unforeseen traumas, but he doesn’t need to know that in order to understand that Dana Scully is thorough. 

Wincing as he stands, he unbuttons his dead-and-gone jeans, edges them down past the knife’s incision and his seeping gash, steps out of the bloody pool they form at his ankles. As he sits back down, she kneels alongside his chair, and of course -  _of course_  - his mind conjures images of different angles, of her lipstick searing her name upon his skin, of her blue eyes staring up at him and asking  _is that how you like it, Mulder?_ Wincing again, he shifts his mind to something else, something benign, something like the furrow of her brow as she thinks about how deep and drastic the cut on his thigh is.

“If you ever go rogue all alone and get stabbed again,” she says as she stands, heads into her apartment’s bathroom, seeks out antiseptics and ways to convince him that going to a hospital is a necessity, not a possibility, “then, I swear,  _I’ll_ be the one doing the stabbing, Mulder.”

Softly, his lip quirks.  _Sounds like a good compromise._


	67. a vow

**[edierone](https://edierone.tumblr.com/) said:** She made a vow on her 30th birthday never to wear cruddy underwear again -- good bras, fitted anew every year; matching panties; better-quality pantyhose -- and she's never been gladder of that than she is right now.

“Scully….”

She’s heard him use her surname in so many ways, from  _Scully, I need you_  to  _Scully, you know that isn’t true_  to  _though I once wanted more, Scully, all I want now is for both of us to feel a sense of peace,_  but now, the longing has been replaced with lethargy, the admiration with disdain; he says her name like it’s a muttered curse, like he’s dismissing her, like her ask is so incredulous that even he doesn’t believe it could happen.

Facing off at separate sides of a bedroom he hasn’t been sleeping in, she stands bare, he clothed and showered for the first time in longer than she wants to recall.  _Six days,_  the masochistic part of her mind reminds her, yet still, she watches his gaze with scrutiny, with diligent, analytical eyes; though he can go months without shaving, can leave food out to rot and can waste away in his office with only the internet and millions of newspaper clippings to keep him company, she’s the one who has to worry if she’s still attractive. Objectively, she knows she is, enough new colleagues going through the  _so, no ring?_  motion with her that she has concrete proof of it, but as she stands before him, her willowy body bare save for the expensive and elusive periwinkle lace over her breasts and hips, she genuinely wonders if her physical form has any appeal to him anymore.

“I’m sorry,” he says disingenuously, breaking their silent duel and heading out of the bedroom, back down to that wretched couch. Momentarily, she wonders what would happen if she sold it, but selling it would require keeping him off of it for a longer length of time than he often goes without it. “Not tonight.”

So she stands there alone, the dingy bedroom lights making her feel more naked than she actually is, an uncomfortable chill snaking up her vertebrae as she remembers how he said that the last time she asked, and the time before that, and the time before that.


	68. austerity (i)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i hate this. unfortunately, it is one of the most popular posts on my blog.

_April 23rd, 2000, 7:00pm_

Before Scully opened her front door, he puffed up the flowers - a last-minute purchase, the about-to-close-up clerk at the convenience store cursing him out while Mulder had tried to remember her favorite color - in front of his chest, put on his best  _I’m an ass_  face. Recently - or, rather, since they’d started seeing each other, maybe even before then - he’d realized that he had many of those types of faces. 

When she opened the door, she stood with her brow furrowed in annoyance - after all, no one else would come by unannounced this late on a Sunday evening - and with her pajamas already on, this pair some kind of dejected pink flannel that the season didn’t require. He could hear her little air conditioning unit, the one that dimmed the lights every half-hour, sputtering on in the living room though they day had been temperate. With her makeup off, her hair beginning to tire, and her big blue eyes full of contempt, he labelled her a hazard and prayed -  _shit_ , not the day for that - for redemption. 

“Hi,” he said feebly.

“I expected you to show this morning.”

Retreating into the apartment - possibly inviting him in, though he wasn’t so sure of that - she leaned against a kitchen cabinet, her back partially to him. On the table were two little wicker baskets, each old and vaguely Longaberger and filled with saran-wrapped cookies and little foiled chocolates. On the couch, a bunched-up blanket lay, and based on the slight humming in the air, he could tell that the television had been on before he’d arrived.

“I’m an ass,” he managed from the doorway.

Humorlessly, she huffed a laugh, and as he stepped toward her, he shivered, the air conditioning making the place too cold, the night beyond her windows casting them both in uncomfortable darkness. He clicked the door shut behind himself, then stilled for a moment, took in his surroundings; if she wouldn’t budge, then he would, so he stepped into the kitchen, opened a cabinet he knew held a vase. After filling the blown glass with water, he pulled away the plastic wrapping on the bouquet, stuck the flowers inside.

“You’re supposed to trim the ends before you put them in water,” she gave softly, and as he looked to her, he saw beyond the anger, past the quiet grief, and found in her eyes a girlish look of hurt, like he’d kicked her on the playground, like he’d taken her favorite doll and had torn its head off with his bare hands. The thought of having power over someone else still made his hands shake, and while he watched her take a deep breath and sigh it out to herself, he wondered about her thesis, about time travel, about going as far back as he could and rearranging their time together. First, he would’ve kissed her sooner, and second, he would’ve kept his word.

“They’re pre-trimmed,” he said even though he didn’t know if they were.

“Alright,” she digressed, leaning her back against the counter and crossing her arms. 

Under her gaze, he stood stock-still, his movements and expressions feeling overanalyzed, and though he could sense that she wanted him to speak, he didn’t know what to say that could mend things, make up for how he’d told her he would be here at seven but neglected to mention that he’d meant the evening, not the morning, or so that was his excuse now that he was stuck in her apartment with two Easter baskets on the table, each one put together by meticulous Catholic hands, both looking heirloom in quality. She’d invited him to church, to her fucking  _church_ , and he’d said yes despite himself, despite the nagging thought at the back of his mind that he didn’t  _do_  Jesus, despite how he knew he’d need to learn how to use an iron before that Sunday. After mass, they were supposed to go back to her mother’s - Bill and Charlie were in town, and Maggie had bought little plastic eggs to hide for the kids - and have mimosas and whatever sugary treat Scully had given up for lent this year. While he’d intended to have Easter dinner with them, he’d had General Tso’s while he sat on his couch instead. 

 _I’m an ass,_ he thought to himself as he looked at the decrepit flowers and the baskets surrounding them.

“Why did you come over, Mulder?” she asked, her tone hurt. “I got your message. I’m not sure you need to deliver it in-person.”

 _My message,_  he thought.  _That I’m incapable of any kind of commitment. That your brothers are only going to hate me more over the years. That you’re worth more than anything I can offer. That I’m broken and bruised and irreparable, as though I was ever good to begin with. That, ten years down the line, all you’re going to feel for me is nuptial contempt._

Taking a deep breath, he tried, “I came over to apologize.”

At that, she kept her gaze down, sucked in her lips, nodded to herself in agreement with whatever some voice in her head had just blurted. Something about leaving him, he figured. Tonight, he couldn’t hold that against her, found that he even agreed.

She looked up, met his gaze with a wronged woman’s fervor, said, “Then apologize.”

“I’m sorry.”

She huffed a sigh, pointed, said, “You’re an ass, and the door’s over there.”

“Scully-”

“I don’t want to hear excuses because I know none of them will come anywhere near being understandable, and I don’t want to have a long talk about how you…you give me keychains instead, or wherever that could go,” she insisted, and he couldn’t tell if he was shivering from the coldness of the room or from how tears sprung to her eyes. “I asked you to come knowing that it was a big ask and that, if you wanted to say no, you would, but it was just  _Easter,_  Mulder! I know it was a big step, but it wasn’t  _that_  big of a step! And you told me you would come. You  _promised,_  and my mother made sure to set a place for you at our table tonight, and my brothers expected you to be there. You were supposed to  _be there._ ”

“Scully, I-”

“My mother even got Melissa’s Easter basket out for you,” she said as though the statement were a threat. “My mom has one for everyone, Mulder, even for the kids and my sisters-in-law, and because she couldn’t scrape a new one together in time for you, she gave you my sister’s. It’s tradition, Mulder, and it matters to me. And you couldn’t even be bothered to show up.”

 _I deserve this,_  he thought, and he did. He’d promised but had stayed home anyway. He’d told her he would be there at seven. He’d told her he would press his shirt. He’d told her he would show up. 

“I just…” she trailed off, then let a tear slip uncomfortably. “I thought this was worth more to you than what it actually is. And i feel stupid for being wrong.”

“This?” He motioned between them, avoiding the baskets and flowers. “ _This?_  Scully, I-”

“Don’t say it,” she insisted with annoyance.

“This means…it means everything to me.”

“Then prove it,” she threatened. “Do something about it. Stop leaving me hanging.”

“I…can.”

“You didn’t today. You had a perfectly good opportunity, but you didn’t take it.” 

“You’re right,” he forced. “I didn’t take it. I was a coward, and I screwed up, and I’m sorry.”

Dejectedly, she huffed a breath. He was beginning to hate that little quirk.

“And I’m bound to do it again!” he continued. “You know me, Scully. Next week, I’ll do something like this again, and the week after that, and the week after that, and you’re going to hate me. You’re going to hate my guts, and it’ll be justified because I’m the kind of person who can’t handle church and family and holidays. And I’m trying, Scully, I’m  _really_  trying, but-”

“Staying home instead isn’t trying,” she said evenly, dully. “That’s giving up. If you want to give up, then at least have the dignity to tell me.”

He took a deep breath, tried to calm his racing heart, searched desperately for the words that would make this right but found none. 

Looking up and meeting his gaze, she said flatly, “I think it would be best if you left.”

 _Yeah_ , he agreed, so he nodded to her, slowly peeled himself from the apartment, ran his gaze over every element within here. The rice-paper lamps, the couch that hadn’t been comfortable to sleep on a few years ago when he’d stayed over, the door to her polite little sanctuary of a bedroom, the little shakes of a running fridge. Though they could fight until morning, he knew that, sometimes, he could never do right by his mistakes, that it would take her weeks to trust him again, that, if this was the final straw for her, he would need to understand. Five months without commitment meant something, and though his mind nagged  _but you’ve been committed to her since the start,_  he was unable to find a recent example of that beyond taking her to happy hour two Thursdays ago and watching shitty sci-fi movies with her in his apartment. If a Mulder of his past were to see him now, even that sorry asshole would ask  _man, what the fuck is your problem?_

Though he thought about kissing her forehead, about an  _I love you_  whispered as he shut the door behind himself, he was silent as he opened the door, as he went to take his leave.

“Take the basket,” she insisted from the kitchen. “I’m sick of looking at it.”

So he left the door ajar, came back under her gaze as he picked up the handwoven and aging heirloom with _ulder_  taped over the engraved  _elissa_  on the basket’s front, and while he carried the basket to the door, he glanced back to her, watched her paw at her wet eyes with disdain.

When he finally came outside, the night comfortably cool, his car parked a few feet away, he felt his shoe stick in something, then looked down to see a defenestrated pile of yellow Gerbera daisies littering his path, their stems untrimmed. Taking a deep breath, he stood still, his gaze stuck on the way gusts of wind blew dead petals across the concrete sidewalk, the darkened scene reminding him of overgrown gravestones where people had left a pile of unkempt flowers a few days beforehand out of obligation. 

 _I deserve that,_ he thought, then headed to his car.


	69. austerity (ii)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> someone asked for a sequel. i didn't want to write one but wrote one anyway. then, i got my first-ever hatemail, and it wasn't even quality hatemail; it was three words, one of which was a typo. i still harbor angst for this.

It was different when they argued, benign spats about leaving the toilet seat up or dirtying too many dishes or making them both late for work taking up their time, for when they argued, she only got annoyed. After an argument, there would be the inevitable apology, an act of making-up usually in the form of washing every dish or putting the toilet seat down, and a calm and forgettable thanks, but now, Mulder silently watched her across the office as she forked salad into her mouth, her heels off already, piles of paperwork sitting in front of her, no words coming between them. When they argued, she merely got annoyed, but now, he could tell that she felt hurt, her mind tired and her body emotionally drained. Of course, they couldn’t manage a case during the one week he would’ve given anything for a distraction, so now, they moved awkwardly around the basement office together, the walls drawing steadily closer as though they’d slowed down the trash compactor scene in  _Star Wars._  He had turkey on rye for lunch, and she had a salad, a dismal and oh-so-Scully salad that, if it were any other day, he would talk her out of in favor of going to the little cafe two blocks over, a place with open windows and pretty umbrellas lining their outdoor seating. He always liked how she looked in the sun.

“So.” Though he craved a conversation to bring rain to their humid and dingy office, he couldn’t find words. Her brow furrowing with exhaustion, she pushed spinach and cucumbers around on her fork, kept her gaze down. “I was thinking we could head to Shenandoah this weekend. The weather’s supposed to be beautiful. We could pack a picnic, go-”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

 _Of course it’s not,_  he thought.  _The last time we went on a wilderness trip, you had to borrow my boots from the fifth grade, and I don’t want to hear another earful about how I should’ve thrown those out ages ago. And I’m not going to throw them out, not until you finally buy a pair of your own._

Sighing, he leaned back in her usual chair - she’d taken to the desk as though it were her natural place, and of course, he would never challenge her about that - and watched as she took another bite, chewed slowly. The windows above cast her in warm daylight, and he could remember back when she’d eaten that abomination of an ice cream in front of him, all insistent that they should go outside and  _carpe diem._  Back then, he’d been romantic, as romantic as paying a kid to hurdle baseballs toward the two of them for an evening could’ve ever made him. She’d even had the heart to wait until they were naked in bed together many months later to tell him that she’d played softball all throughout her childhood and knew very well how to swing a bat. With vivid clearness, he could remember the way she’d said it, a sexed-up laugh on her lips as she’d looked at him with pure light in her eyes. There is nothing more beautiful, he figured, than a woman laughing in bed.

“Well,” he said, then thought through every other place he could take her to, everywhere from the Washington monument to the reflecting pool to the Johns Hopkins campus, “we could-”

“I’m really looking to spend the weekend alone.”

In her voice, he could hear finality, a closing remark; this was where she wanted the conversation - or, really, any and all conversation - to end.

“Okay,” he said, not listening,  _never_  listening. “What about next Monday? Takeout and a-”

“Mulder.” Finally, she looked up at him. “I could really use some space right now.”

 _Yeah,_  he thought,  _but it’s just us two in the basement, and unless someone gets killed by the yeti within the next ten minutes, we’re chained to this desk until Friday afternoon._

_Shit._

_The desk._

Suddenly, he had an idea.

“Okay,” he said, the topic dismissed, his mind distracting him with more possibilities than he could count. Suddenly, the room opened up, fresh air coming in, and when her gaze turned incredulous, he didn’t even mind.

“Okay,” she echoed uncomfortably, uneasy with how readily he accepted such a proposition. 

After a pause, she went back to her salad, but his sandwich was left unattended while he lost himself in thought, his mind going to friends and business cards and whatever an allen wrench was. Though he didn’t know how to make everything up to her, he at least knew where to start.

* * *

Aerating a glass of wine in her hand, Scully crossed her legs as she sat on Ellen’s couch, her friend pouring herself a liberal helping of the drink.

“So he just doesn’t show,” Ellen said as she came over to the couch, sat down next to Scully; her tone was half incredulous, half expectant. “I mean, you said he’s not religious.”

Closing her eyes in annoyance, Scully gave, “ _So_  not my point.”

She considered this outing to be both damage control and reparation; if Mulder were to stop by her place on this Friday night, she wouldn’t be home, and plus, she hadn’t seen Ellen - or had a steady female friend - in years, so a visit was overdue. After Scully had gotten out of work, she’d gone home to change into something more casual and comfortable, then headed over to Ellen’s in time for the kids to show her their art projects from school and then insist that she join them for paint-by-numbers. With dinner over - Ellen had a way with roast chicken, and after a playful pat to Scully’s ass, her friend had dumped an extra-large helping of mashed potatoes onto her plate claiming that Scully needed it - and with the kids in bed, they could finally go on  _adult time,_ the pinot noir uncorked and the guest room full of fresh linens. It had been a long time since Scully had last sipped wine with the intention of getting drunk.

“I know, I know,” Ellen said, then took a sip from her glass. “It’s just that you acted like this guy was an incompatible workaholic - and, in your words, a  _jerk_  - and then he goes and does something like this, and poor Maggie, right, all prepared with no guest showing? But you’re still surprised.”

Scully huffed a breath, her eyes keen on the wine in her glass. Thinking back to undergraduate, she tried to remember if her limit had been two or three drinks, if wine was eight ounces per glass or if she was confusing it with beer.

“I’m just saying,” Ellen insisted, her tone starting to back off, “that you can’t put faith in the faithless, Dana.”

Ellen’s living room was dark save for soft lamplight, the couch plush and straight from a HomeGoods catalog, pictures from family vacations framed on the walls and little tchotchkes littering the matching oak furniture. With a pale blue carpet, the place looked like a gaudy homemaker’s attempt to recreate the beach, but still, Scully eyed the pictures of the kids building sandcastles, her gaze keen on the dog toys scattered on the floor. Though she could ridicule it all, she still wished her own home weren’t so barren, that she had more than a few polaroids and some newspaper clippings to symbolize the woman she’d become. 

She must’ve been quiet for a while, all lost in her thoughts, for Ellen tilted her head toward Scully, gave a near-pitying look.

“So you like him that much,” she gave knowingly.

“I don’t know,” Scully spat, nearly splashing wine onto the couch. “I don’t know if it’s him or…the idea of him. Or if I’m in for the good parts but so  _out_  for the bad ones.”

“Has he done things like this before?”

“Yes.” She paused. “To a degree.”

“To a degree,” Ellen repeated.

Rolling her eyes, Scully gave, “I know he’s impulsive, and I know that he doesn’t do well with family or religion. When I asked, I hadn’t expected him to say yes, but he did, and  _that’s_  what’s getting to me, Ell. For some things, I know he won’t show up, and I’ve made peace with that, but he’s never…I’ve always been able to trust him.”

“And he broke that trust,” Ellen completed.

“Yes,” Scully forced. “He did.”

“Do you think he’d do it again?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, take a guess.”

“I don’t know!” she insisted. “It’s not like I can test a hypothesis by asking him to be with my family on the next Catholic holiday, Ell. It’s not like we have one every week.”

“Other than church,” Ellen offered. “Pose the invite again, this time in a more casual way. See if he’ll go.”

Looking down at her lap, Scully mumbled, “Mulder  _really_  isn’t into religion.”

“But if he’s into you, and if he knows he’s done wrong by you, then he’s going to overlook that.”

“I don’t want him to do something that makes him uncomfortable. I don’t want to coerce him into being under the scrutinizing eye of every Catholic who knows me.”

“Well, keep the idea on the backburner just in case.” Ellen eyed Scully’s nearly-empty glass. “More?”

“Yes, please,” Scully gave with a tight-lipped smile.

That guest room kept sounding more and more appealing. 

* * *

It wasn’t truly a Monday unless she locked in long before Mulder did. 

As she walked out of the empty elevator and headed toward the office, rain poured down outside, her umbrella at her hip and her hair beginning to frizz. She hated days like this one, all warm and humid and uncomfortable; she figured rain was for days when the earth needed cooling redemption, not for days when temperatures were sweaty and sticky. Beer weather, her father used to call days like these, for you’d only ever cool off during them by sipping a crisp, dark beer. 

When she came to the office’s door, she took out her keys but hesitated before putting them into the lock, her gaze centered on a new plague above his older one.

_DANA SCULLY, M.D._

Turning her key and pressing the door open, she stopped quickly, her feet stuck as she stared at the new arrangement of the office. Though most everything was in its original place, the posters, pictures, and filing cabinets unmoved, his desk had been turned so that it made an L-shape with a new desk, one made of the same color wood as the original was. Of course, the original desk still held his files and paperwork, the lamps all in their same spots, but the new one, as she saw when she approached it, held her printed reports from the autopsy she’d done a few weeks beforehand; when she opened its high-quality drawers, she found packs of her favorite pens, the lotion she used to keep in the top drawer of the original desk, a knot of hair bands. Its top was adorned with a plague matching the new one on the door. 

Softly, she smiled.


	70. where i live, it's snowing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> after i was out of treatment for my physical health and was healthy again, i experienced a massive downturn with my mental health, a change that is apparently very common though i hadn't known that at the time. i'd written sapokanikan that spring, my first ever multichap and one of the most challenging things i'd ever written, and after that, i fell off the wagon with writing, so once the depression hit, i was toast. at the time, i'd also been working on the stella/bedelia crossover i have published, which was incredibly frustrating in its early stages and made me feel inadequate as a writer. in october of that year, i read when breath becomes air in one sitting and was ridiculously inspired by it to the point that i wrote a significant chunk of true minds, also published on here, then set it aside for a while. the depression worsened, i got treatment, i was still doing badly when i came across the draft of true minds that i'd forgotten about. it needed massive edits - it was all in different tenses, half uppercase half lower, the story completely disjointed - but there was enough of it that i wouldn't have to start from scratch, not at all. i decided to commit to it and actually post something so that i would stop feeling like such a failure.
> 
> i'd had a mild controversy over the statement "imagine stella gibson holding a baby" which apparently fandom ladies thought meant "imagine stella gibson as a mother" and it turns out these people thought motherhood was oppression or something so they got angry. i was lowkey booed out. so, as i published true minds, i didn't expect a response. i mostly just wanted it done. to my surprise, it did really well, and people left good feedback, and from the rush of it, i wrote this in one sitting the next day. i'd just gotten out of some really bad life stuff, i'd managed to write for once, and when i woke up that day, it had been snowing, the first snow of the season. it was the most joyful i'd been in months.

he wore big, pointless gloves whenever he put wood in the stove, holes forming in the enforced fingers that had been so stiff their first winter here, now aging like the tree outside that had cracked and fallen in the last windstorm, causing enough outdoor disruption that she’d looked to him, all saw-and-masculinity, and said, “i guess it’s time that we call someone for help.” over the course of fourteen years, he’d grown outdoor-savvy, collecting a watering can and some twine to make a primal form of an outdoor shower for when the summer days were so wicked that bathing in their own home was pointless, sweat forming on their brows as soon as they stepped out of the bathroom. he’d begun gardening vegetables to the point that she’d bought him a kneeling pad for christmas without any sense of the strangeness of the purchase, and they’d been living in time with the circadian rhythms and human instincts that the rest of the western world seemed to have forgotten. every winter, they each gained five or six pounds from creamed polenta and organic roast chicken, and in the summers, he would watch as their legs steadily bulked from long walks on their property, winter stores being shed as she picked basil straight from their plants in order to make fresh pesto. though he’d never been much good at home repairs - he left all but screwing in the lightbulbs for her because she could reach everything else and knew what the hell a  _fusebox_  was - he could at least do the housework, keeping the sheets soft and clean, passing her a fresh towel as she stepped out of a steaming bath, washing the dishes even though he sorely despised the chore. however, no matter how educated he could grow in the ways of living far away from other people, there were some things that required more than just a manual saw and a geezer. 

“don’t call yourself a  _geezer_ ,” she’d said while they’d watched their neighbors, outfitted with a chainsaw and young men’s naive muscles, chop the fallen tree from an environmental disruption to easily-burned wood.

but he could put wood in the fire, and he could chop them down a bulbous christmas tree from their own woods, and he could, even if his back still ached from it, lift her up so that she could put her mother’s old quilted angel on the very top, baubles and heirloom ornaments -  _merry christmas 1996_  in a silver snowflake,  _hope your christmas is out of this world!_  on a ceramic flying saucer -  shifting while he set her down. he could keep one hand on her back while he reached for the switch - they’d gone new-age - for the lights strung on the tree, and as he turned those lights on, he could kiss the side of her face aimlessly, wherever his lips ended up being exactly the right spot. he could watch her grow that  _christmas smile_  of hers, the one that showed him that, despite seasonal affective disorder, late-stage capitalism, the familial perils of the holidays, and hazardous driving conditions, people still hung lights on their houses during this time of year, too much snow falling for anyone to find the north star so everyone created their own instead.  _i’ll be home for christmas,_  he thought,  _because, even in all of this darkness, people still want to create light._

overnight, the house had grown cold, and though she’d told him to put extra wood in the stove before they went to bed, a way to combat the oncoming storm, he’d - like, in his words, a dumbass - decided not to listen to the matriarch of the house and instead to go with his usual amount, for his usual amount was usually good enough. come four in the morning, he’d woken to find her rummaging through their closet for wool blankets, and eventually, he’d felt compelled to put on a sweatshirt even though he rarely ran cold. 

through the window above their bed, he could just see some flurries, sparse patches of white littering the ground.

“it’s snowing,” he’d said as she’d nestled herself into an inches-thick cocoon that heavily separated them. 

and, knowing he hadn’t listened with regard to the wood in the stove, she’d sleepily given, “be quiet.”

so, he put more wood in only a few hours into that sunday morning, burning his poking-through fingers like he always did, hearing the echo of her offer to buy him new gloves. even as he took the gloves off, went into the kitchen to run his fingers beneath some cold water, he found that he didn’t mind the burns, or if he did mind them, he still didn’t want new gloves, not when he was so accustomed to taking down the same pair every year as soon as november’s chill rolled in. at a certain point, age became quotidian, not boring but still normal; though they were ever-changing people, they’d settled into certain patterns, had learned of each other’s little tells, so when it came time to abandon certain things - their original couch, some of the vhs tapes they never watched - he found himself growing sentimental. though he didn’t fear change, he relished in consistency, in comfort, and if he got a new pair of gloves, he feared the altered state of his circadian life. would he still know just what day in november to start putting wood in if he bought new gloves?

 _yeah, of course you would,_  he scoffed as he turned off the water, dried his hands.  _it’s just a pair of gloves. don’t reduce your life to a pair of fucking gloves._

she came down the stairs, hair falling out of a ponytail, her eyes drawn to the windows from beyond her glasses. there was something about a winter landscape, he knew, about how old, sunken windows turned to art as soon as snow flurries were beyond them, how coming home felt better when he could look beyond his dragoned breath and see her sitting on the couch and reading a book while the christmas tree was lit through the window. he couldn’t think of a summer equivalent. 

“hey,” he gave, leaning against the kitchen counter.

“burn your fingers?” she asked as she reached for her coat on its hook by the door. 

he gave her a look, said, “of course.”

“i’m buying you new gloves,” she insisted with vivacity as she pulled on a wool scarf, buttoned her coat, searched for mittens, “and i’m not letting you fight me on it this time.”

“fine,” he conceded, smiling. “where are you off to?”

“i just want to see the snow,” she said, hovering her hand over the front door’s knob. “care to join?”

the last bit of californian in her found delight in concepts of new england normalcy, and every year, she would be giddy to see those first flurries, and of course, he would follow her out, watch as she caught one or two snowflakes on her tongue, brush his always-warm thumbs over her rosy cheeks. eventually, snowflakes would litter her hair and lashes, and her lips would chap, and once her nose grew too cold, they would go inside, boots damp with snow, and while she tied her hair up into a messy, wet bun, he would make cocoa with whole milk and chocolate shavings on the stove, swirling lots of whipped cream atop each of their mugs; then, they would lounge beneath a blanket on the couch and decide to watch the first christmas movie that they found playing on any channel.

“except for  _hallmark_ ,” he would say. “i refuse to watch  _hallmark_.”

most often, they would end up watching  _hallmark._

“sure,” he said, then reached for his own coat.


	71. the beast, fast asleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> another instance of retrospective vulnerability. i had a really shitty 2017.

“dick clark’s dead,” she said that morning as she made them both eggs over-easy. “he can’t be on his own show, so why call it  _dick clark’s new year’s eve?_ ”

though he doubted she had the title correct, there was no point in correcting her, or if there was a point, the point was the same as finding meaning in why some truck cut in front of him when he was trying to get gas or why the measly town nearby had grown so overcrowded that he hadn’t managed to get her belated christmas present, a book he’d completely forgotten she’d asked for, before the end of the year. in the end, he only had to wait for the gas, and after he’d admitted to his forgetfulness and ultimate inability, she shrugged it all off and put the book in her amazon cart, letting him press the  _purchase_  button because she knew it would help him keep thoughts of inadequacy at bay.

“tradition, i guess,” mulder gave, taking his first sip of coffee. “i’m out of ideas for plans otherwise.”

at this point, he was so accustomed to such admittances that he wondered when they would start to feel far-out again. at the beginning of the year, he had been fighting back tears in front of his therapist, but now, scully would wake in the early hours of the morning to find him facing away from her, only his position acting as a shield, his cries obvious but gambling: he wouldn’t wake her but would ask for comfort if, through his not holding back, she heard him, woke, and inquired. it would be one thing if he knew he wasn’t trying, but he now had regimens in every part of his life, from the internet to sex to whether or not he was to leave the house, which, more often than not, he was to do. the only time he’d missed biweekly therapy had been when he’d taken scully on an ill-fated ski trip in the adirondacks, a tweaked knee leaving them holed up in a shared cabin airbnb with a pair of athletic couples who left their expensive yoga mats sprawled out on the hearthstones because, apparently, it was all more  _authentic_  that way, a spiritual practice next the quintessential introductory biology question: is fire alive, or is it not? 

sometimes, his therapist told him to take into account that simply getting through the day, even if he drank or binge-ate or pushed scully away or hurt himself, was better than the alternative, but it was hard to see everyone else and still understand that his efforts were, in fact, efforts. one notification saying that scully had added a stanford-educated doctor as a facebook friend, and he would find himself dissecting his education, his employment, his pile of dishes in the sink, the dust piling on top of a self-help book borrowed from his therapist. with the internet and with large-scale communication, people became global citizens as soon as they logged on for the first time, and with the depression, the latent post-traumatic stress, and the malaise that had followed him for so long that it had become a constant companion, he found the responsibility of reacting to every piece of news, trying to better himself, and making sure that he left the world better than he found it was a heavier weight than he could carry.

“are you trying your best right now?” his therapist would ask.

“yes, of course i am,” he would defend. “does it seem like i’m not?”

“no, no,” she would say, shaking her head. “i know how hard you’ve worked, and i know your persistence has been challenging and, in the end, productive. i’m more curious as to why you need to defend that you’re doing all you can.”

on that, he would draw a blank, maybe shrug, say, “childhood things, i suppose.  _perfectionism_  tends to be the go-to blame.”

and his therapist would give a little tight-lipped smile. he could only imagine how challenging it was to counsel a fellow psychologist, a playmaker who knew her moves possibly even before she did. 

“do you think dana is doing her best?” his therapist would ask.

“yes,” he would say without a doubt. scully was seeing a therapist as well, a different one in the city. every other week, she would come home late on wednesday night feeling sometimes triumphant, sometimes haggard, and he would meet her at the doorway with a kiss and with dinner on the table. he’d watched the shifts within her over time, how she would breathe into their fights or speak her mind with quiet, fearful vulnerability, unafraid of him but terrified of herself. he hoped - and figured - there would be a day when they could share such little tells with each other, a measurement of progress, compassion of spirit, and pure respect. 

“do you think she thinks you’re doing your best?” his therapist would ask.

“yes,” he would say again without hesitation, for scully had expressed that to him enough times to make him feel secure in such an answer 

“if you know that you’re both doing your best, then what else is there that you need to know?” his therapist would ask. “why does it matter what anyone else does or thinks?”

so, it felt like defeat to lack new year’s plans, but he knew that, come the new year, he would need to work on that. he didn’t understand the finite feeling of a year, for midnight would pass, the ball would drop, kisses would be had, and everyone would sluggishly make their ways to work on the 2nd, cast out of the liminal holiday haze, ready for what always ended up being an awkward and uncomfortable january. by february, resolutions would prove to have been pointless to make, and around valentine’s day, he would need to admit that to himself, and all in all, the year’s end was as relieving as the end of a college semester: though introductory psychology i was over, and though he was a  _hell yeah, winter break!_  kind of excited about that, introductory psychology ii was only three weeks away. a new year didn’t end his struggles or make his pain go away, nor did it bring him happiness or a sense of accomplishment. he didn’t quite feel dread, but he felt ambivalence, boredom; he didn’t see the point of celebrating a hard year, then finding excitement in the uncertainty of a new one.

“i’m glad we don’t have plans,” she said, plating eggs. “i’d really like to stay home.”

“is there something good to watch on netflix?” he asked, unsure of whether he was making conversation or grasping at straws, vulnerability straws, a sense that he needed to know exactly which title in the horror-slash-science-fiction section would be recommended for them based on his recent rewatch of  _zombeavers_  and her eye-rolled agreement two weeks earlier that  _gremlins_  was, in fact, a christmas movie in order to be the proper man-of-the-house that she’d never asked him to be. 

“i don’t know,” she brushed off. “want to find something while i finish off some work this afternoon?”

in the end, his task had been meaningless, a title intended to keep them up until midnight leading to them both falling asleep fifteen minutes in, and by the time he woke, the television had long ago dulled its screen, and against him on the couch, she slept, her ponytail tickling his arm, her glasses still on. from where he lay, he could just see the time on his watch, an hour past midnight, and uncomfortably, he tensed. they’d missed the changeover, the first minute of a most uncertain year. they’d missed it in the early 2000s, during their separation, a few times because she’d had to work, but they’d never missed it during a new year’s eve spent together. 

should he wake her? he wasn’t sure he saw the point now that the hour had passed, but he found himself floundering in this uncharted territory, this new place where everything was the same though he wanted it to be so different. against his better judgement, he nudged her, whispered her name, and she shifted awake, nestled closer to him on the couch.

“i didn’t mean to fall asleep,” she gave groggily, eyes still closed.

“we missed the new year, scully,” he said anxiously. “we missed it by a whole hour.” 

peeking down at his watch, she admitted, “we did.”

“i didn’t mean to-”

“you owe me a kiss.”

tiredly, she scooted up against his chest, her face coming so close that their noses could almost touch. her glasses started slipping down her nose.

“first one of the year,” she said, a soft smile on her lips. “make it good.”

without thinking, he cupped her cheek for balance, kissed her without poise or grace or anything else that adorned the new year’s kisses of every hallmark movie she let play in the background of their holiday festivities. by the end, he figured her glasses had left a scratch on his cheek, but in the dark, he knew she wouldn’t be able to tell. 

“happy new year, mulder,” she said softly, nestling back into her spot against his chest. “i love you.”

“love you too,” he gave, and when she managed to fall back asleep, glasses still on, uncomfortable couch cushions be damned, he figured one awkward kiss an hour after midnight was more than good enough. 


	72. down from the stars, up from the sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written post-ghouli

her therapist, only two weeks in, had told her one of many things she’d dreaded hearing: if she wanted to feel more comfortable in her own skin and not as though every moment alone with her thoughts was a moment to numb, she needed to try mindfulness. she needed to learn how to meditate, to sit still, to let thoughts pass by her like raindrops on her dashboard. at first, she could set a timer on her phone for five minutes and let herself sit, thoughts coming but tempering as soon as she gave them an astute  _thinking_  jab, but once she started to feel more comfortable in her meditations, her mind upped the ante, throwing new distractions at her, finding the topic of what she would make for dinner much less interesting than, say, the amount of money in her bank account, her brother’s current one-sided family debacle, mulder in any shape or form. 

“i can’t do it anymore,” she told her therapist during a session. “it’s too much. i feel trapped. it doesn’t help anymore.”

“any reason why?” her therapist asked, as though it were scully’s job to know why and not that of, say, a mental health practitioner. 

“adaptation,” scully gave, looking to change the subject. “i get better, the challenges get worse. i don’t believe in it anymore.”

“crisis of faith?” she could almost hear the smile on her therapist’s lips.

“not a crisis,” she brushed off. “i’m just not going to do it anymore.”

but it was horrifying to wake paralyzed, to find herself trapped in an unknown place, and though at first she found herself gasping for breath, feeling as though she were drowning, the dreams started happening often enough that she began taking those deep, meditative breaths instead, letting her lungs, one of few parts of her body that she could still control, fill and empty in counted time. she didn’t need to resist anymore; all she needed to do was breathe, and then, he would show her the way, and somehow, despite his age and the mysteriousness of his upbringing, she found that she trusted him.

this time, she was in a shitty motel bed, the bleached scent of the sheets almost as familiar as the lavender bed spray she insisted upon using at home, and as she stared out at the room, at the pockmarks on the water-damaged walls, at the flashes of light coming from a muted television, she took a deep breath, held it for a moment, let it go slowly. _focus on your lungs,_  she told herself, and soon enough, she could wiggle her fingers and toes again. as she sat up slowly and looked out at the room, she watched as his hooded figure opened the motel room’s door and headed outside, knowing she would follow.

the carpet was damp and gritty, dirty enough that she figured he couldn’t have spent much money on this room. would it be hypocritical to tell him to stay somewhere better? as she opened the door, she looked out at his car, a donut on one of its back wheels, and she wondered what she could do, if she could sign a check in this state so that he would have some extra money. the pavement of the motel’s lot burned her bare bedtime feet; while she followed him, she found herself hopping through her steps, nearly catching up to him in an effort to make her way to the cool beach up ahead. once her feet sunk into the sand, she looked out at the horizon beyond, at the sunset in stripes of purple in pink, at how quiet and empty the beach was even though mussed sand told her that it wasn’t this way only hours ago. this was california, wasn’t it? the time difference made sense, but how could he have driven so far to somewhere so obvious?  _you’re just like your father,_  she gave, shaking her head.  _surprisingly hedonistic, unsurprisingly clueless._

ahead of her, he sat down in the sand, pulled off his hood, waited for her there while she breathed in the sea air, felt the intricacy of the ground beneath her feet, stepped over strewn shells and bits of seaweed.  _watch for jellyfish,_  she could hear her mother’s voice echo in her mind, and softly, she smiled. could he hear her thoughts? she almost hoped he could, that he would hear his grandmother’s voice in her head too, that he could connect with mulder even though she seemed to be the only one having these dreams.

as she drew closer to him, she asked,  _please connect with your father_. then, she sat down alongside him, leaned back onto her palms, watched the weighty ebb and flow of the empty ocean, saw cloud pass by like pointless thoughts. 

 _i’ve tried,_  she heard her son’s voice say in her mind.  _he’s not as open-minded as you are._

softly, she laughed, gave,  _that’s a first._

glancing toward him, she saw the darkness of his eyes, his desperate need for a haircut, his round cheeks and the spritz of freckles on his skin and some acne on his forehead because, after all, she’d never met a teenage boy who washed his face. she wanted to tell him to wear less black, to at least put his hair in a band, to let her funnel some money to him, to get his damn tire patched, but she couldn’t manage the words, could only watch how he breathed and wish she could reach out and touch him, make it all real. however, she knew enough about wanting to keep her hands buried in the sand; if she could only see him, not touch him, then that was more than enough. she’d spent enough years wishing to see him that she dared not take the experience for granted.

 _i’m going to love you,_  william gave, gaze toward the ocean, face stoic. 

she took a deep breath, let it out slowly, looked back at the waves. the sky was growing dark, and he to return to the motel room before night came, so she knew the dream would end soon. at first, she would stress about the ending of each dream, would crave more as he slipped away, would force her eyes shut in hope of just a few more seconds, but now, she breathed into the moment, let it happen as it would. sometime soon, he would ask for her to come back, and she would go easily into his world, wherever it was that he had gone. she would see whatever he needed her to see, and she would carry that message back to mulder, back to their bed in rural virginia, back to where they’d set up the guest bedroom so that, if someone needed to move in, they would immediately feel at home. 

and she woke with a start, hands balled into fists against the lavender-scented sheets, and in seconds, mulder was awake alongside her, fully aware of what had happened, eyes soft with askance. 

“what did he need to show you?” mulder asked, shifting in bed, facing her but giving her space to breathe.

their bedroom was dark, the shades drawn, the hour just after eleven, their pressed suits ready for work tomorrow. on the dresser, all of her creams and perfumes lay, and their bottom drawer was stuck out because he’d stuffed his shirts in haphazardly, the recent addition of hers making for tight quarters. she didn’t need to keep tampons in the bathroom anymore. downstairs, her stack of library books sat on the coffee-table, and they were both bringing leftovers - quinoa salad, grilled chicken, and shredded carrots - as their lunches for work tomorrow. in the morning, he would make them both eggs on ezekiel toast, tea for her and coffee for him, and she would drive during their commute because she fared better in rush hour traffic than he did. for now, they only needed to pull the comforter up farther, lean in closer to each other, edge their pillows together until their foreheads almost touched.

“that he’s safe,” she gave, looking up at mulder.

he nodded against his pillow, then kissed her forehead, lingered toward his lips. it was odd, how quickly she grew accustomed to their sloppy nighttime kisses again, a communion of aimless need, a confirmation of whatever they were each overthinking. reaching out, he rubbed the small of her back, pulled her closer.

“he’ll be back soon,” scully gave even though she had no reason to believe such a thing, no reason other than blind faith.

mulder remained stoic, unaffected.

“he loves us,” she said, trying to meet mulder’s gaze.

but it was late, so he only nodded, then turned back over in bed.

“goodnight, scully,” he gave.

she took a deep breath in and let it be.


	73. downpour, early october

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written while in an anatomy & physiology lecture and not paying attention

“the roads aren’t good,” scully had said, using the bluetooth in her car to call mulder during her drive home. on certain days, she ended up in rush hour traffic as she left the city, so she would find entertainment in an audiobook or conversation, calling family or a friend and catching up while in stop-and-go. tonight, he had been the chosen subject despite how she was coming home directly to him. “i might be a while.”

his phone on speaker and left on the kitchen counter, he’d chopped vegetables for dinner while talking to her, his knife-cuts careful and slow. age had made his hands clumsy, as she so loved to point out when he got a little too cocky with his chopping. after last week’s stitches incident, his thumb still intact but just barely, he wouldn’t take any chances.

“take your time,” he’d said, sliding chopped carrots onto a sheet pan. “dinner might take a while. oven’s been so temperamental.”

“we ought to put in a new one.” a honk in the distance, a sigh in annoyance from her, the sound of a turning signal and the overwhelming white noise of heavy rainfall against a windshield. “no more crispy potatoes.”

“it isn’t my fault that you have poor taste.”

she had given a sarcastic, deadpanned, “ha ha.”

once she’d exited the highway, she’d ended the call, so he kept silence in the kitchen until he heard her car pull up, pulled dinner from the oven and checked one last time that the table had been set properly. this was one of their sacred aspects of their life together, every night’s dinners. while on the run, they would share gas station food together, sitting in the car and imagining what fresh vegetables tasted like; making a home out of this house had required breaking in some cast irons and dishware, putting cracks on the plates and claiming certain mugs as exclusively scully’s or mulder’s. if he truly thought back to when things had ended between them, what had shown that things were going wrong and likely wouldn’t revert for a long time, was how they no longer are dinner together, each of them having something separately, their timing awkward and off, the meals drastically differing. in order to repair what he could, he packed her a meal whenever she left for work, left a note on her longer days or on days when he thought she needed cheering up. he gave their meals together the utmost respect, so he would double-check the place-settings, have dinner ready as soon as she walked in the door. the added bonus, of course, was that the warm, relieved smile she gave at the concept of home depicted to her in the form of a warm meal and her partner to share it with. nothing was really so bad if he could still see that smile.

even the short walk from her car to the porch had left her drenched, her coat dripping as she hung it over the radiator, her books wet and muddy in the tray below. with her long hair braided, she had managed to keep her hair dry, but little wet wisps stook out and clung to her face, her makeup having come off long ago, her eyes bright but weary. after a long week at work, she was more than ready to curl up with a meal and him, pushing the hospital far away.

“hey,” she gave quietly, breathlessly, as she met him in the kitchen, stood on the wool-socked balls of her feet so that she could kiss him with that smile on her lips. “smells good.”

“something simple,” he said, palm on her shoulder, relishing in the quoditidan relief of seeing her again. “salmon and roasted fall vegetables.”

she hummed in thankful approval.

“here, grab a plate,” he gave, then took a spatula from the kitchen drawers, set it alongside the cooling sheet pan. “have at.”

after serving themselves, her plate more full of salmon and his dominated by butternut squash and sweet potatoes, they ate in comfortable silence, the downpour sounding off on their roof, the world around them flooding, turning their meadow home to a bog. in the morning, he would have to wear his tractor supply boots and wade through the front lawn in order to start her car while she finished getting ready. sometimes, when the weather made it challenging for her to walk out, the snow perhaps too deep, he would carry her bridal-style to the car, her bag and lunch on her lap, the weight of her against his aging body leaving him achy for the rest of the day. still, he relished in that ache, in the little reminders of her throughout this house, in how they were together again and securely so. she would still call him during her long drives home just because. he would still keep their dinners a sacred ritual. tonight, they would go to bed warm and comfortable together in their bed, the closet shared, the bathroom brimming with his-and-hers products that sometimes overlapped in a pinch. this was a home again. back when they stopped eating dinner together, it hadn’t been, but now, this was a home again.

“so,” she gave, two bites from the end of her meal, “do we have any ice cream left in the freezer?”

and in their home, that meant one carton but two spoons.


End file.
